Edward Enninful on Robert Mapplethorpe The former British Vogue editor is curating a new exhibition of the famed photographer’s work

(Edward Enninful): I was first introduced to Robert Mapplethorpe’s work by the stylist Simon Fox, who spotted me on the train, and I went on to model for him. I came from a very sheltered childhood, a Christian background. So I saw these pictures of black men I’d never seen before. It was all new to me. It sparked my imagination and opened up a whole world, a gay world, that I didn’t know existed. (...)

I’ve been working in magazines since I was 16 years old so I always see things in twos, like a double-page spread, whether it’s to find harmony or to find contrast. That’s how I see the world. When we went to Thaddaeus Ropac gallery in Paris to work on this show, we had all of Mapplethorpe’s images spread out, and I looked around the space and all of a sudden it just felt like they needed to be presented as pairings. There are some images that flow together, some that fight against each other. I think that’s something that runs through the exhibition. Serenity and chaos, yin and yang, quiet and loud. I love contrasts. I love things that make you think we don’t live in a perfect world. (...)