Photo Finesse: Robert Mapplethorpe curated by Edward Enninful A striking exhibition explores the images of Robert Mapplethorpe through a new lens

By ROBIN MUIR

In mid-'80s Manhattan, at a show of Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs and collages, I followed a slightly stooping, elderly lady into the packed gallery. This was Mapplethorpe in excelsis, surfing the crest of two waves: an art market that had started to show an interest both in fine art photography and the explosion of the gay scene, downtown chiefly but travelling uptown fast. Full-frontal male portraits might hang next to pictures of Lord Snowdon or Richard Gere or two urinating lovers. In any event, the show was startling enough to offend any old lady. Though not this one: it turned out she was the collector Ileana Sonnabend, an early champion of Gilbert & George and Jeff Koons. In a room full of nervous glances and open mouths, she was the least perturbed of all. 

Though Mapplethorpe has been dead for 35 years, he continues to beguile. "In his day, when he made these pictures, you're one thing or another, and that's so interesting to me in a time now when people don't want to label themselves at all," says Edward Enninful, who has curated a new show of the photographer's work, opening at Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris this month. 

It will show the photographer in a fresh light, with Enninful arranging the exhibition in pairs of images, intuiting the duality at the heart of the artist.