Mapplethorpe's provocative photography meets 18th-century painting at Rome's Galleria Corsini

A daring exhibition at the Galleria Corsini in Rome juxtaposes forty works by Robert Mapplethorpe with the museum's 18th-century painting collection. Curated by Flaminia Gennari Santori, director of the Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini, the show marks the 30th anniversary of the controversial American photographer's death. The installation creates thematic and compositional dialogues between Mapplethorpe's images—including bodybuilder Lisa Lyon, sadomasochistic crucifixions, and phallic objects—and Baroque masterpieces by Caravaggio, Rubens, Guido Reni, and Ribera. Mapplethorpe, who died in 1989, once said that had he been born centuries earlier he would have been a sculptor, but photography offered a faster way to sculpt. The exhibition draws on loans from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation in New York. This is not the first such pairing: a decade ago, Mapplethorpe's work was shown alongside Michelangelo's David and Slaves at Florence's Galleria dell'Accademia.