Born in New York in 1946 and passing away in Boston at the age of just forty-two, Mapplethorpe was among the most significant interpreters of the counterculture from the 1960s through the 1980s, a period when creativity became a political act and the arts merged into new languages of freedom and identity.

Promoted by the City of Milan – Culture, and produced by Palazzo Reale and Marsilio Arte in collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation in New York, the exhibition is part of the cultural programme of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

Curated by Denis Curti, the exhibition will be on view at Palazzo Reale from 29 January to 17 May 2026.

The retrospective Robert Mapplethorpe. Le forme del desiderio represents the second chapter of a broader trilogy that began in Venice at Le Stanze della Fotografia and will continue in Rome. Each exhibition explores a different aspect of Mapplethorpe’s life and work through a dedicated path of study and research.

In Milan, the focus is on his aesthetic exploration: his sensual nudes, distinguished by formal perfection and an Olympian Greek mimesis in which musculature and physical tension are exalted: the body, sculpted through his masterful use of light and contrast, becomes the means through which his artistic investigation reaches sublimation.

The exhibition is accompanied by a podcast – available from 21 October on Spotify, Apple Music, and all major streaming platforms – Mapplethorpe Unframed, written and hosted by Nicolas Ballario, and by a catalogue published by Marsilio Arte, exploring the artist’s body of work and the evolution of his visual language through 257 photographs.