Curated by Isobel Parker Philip (AGNSW’s assistant curator for photography), Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium features portraits, still lifes and figure studies on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the J. Paul Getty Museum, who jointly acquired a massive trove of artwork and archival material from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation in 2011 – making them the go-to source for his work. In other words: expect this show to be authoritative.
In addition to the exhibition, AGNSW is holding free screenings of films exploring the gritty underbelly of New York City from the late 1960s through to the 1980s.