A Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition at the Palau Robert

To mark the occasion of the premiere at the Castell de Peralada Festival of the opera Hadrian, the Castell de Peralada Festival in a co-production with the Palau Robert, and in collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. New York, have organised a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition, Flowers and People, curated by Jörn Weisbrodt. A selection of 20 photographs that create a visual dialogue between Wainwright’s opera and the work of Mapplethorpe. The exhibition is open from 1-29 April in the Gardens of the Palau Robert.

During his visit to Barcelona, Weisbrodt explained that “the work of Robert Mapplethorpe is unique in the history of photography. He opened the medium of photography up to an infinite variety of new territories, that were ground-breaking in terms of the visual, whilst at the same time creating some of the art form’s most iconic and classic images.” For Weistbrodt, Mapplethorpe expresses those emotional states that are fundamental to our human existence using what he has before his eyes, through his homosexual gaze, without flinching. As he explained, for Mapplethorpe, when we love or create is when we are capable of forgetting our own existence, something that can only come from love or the fact of loving. And what Hadrian understood at the end of his life, Mapplethorpe knew from the very beginning of his artistic expression.