Exhibition Coup for Perth

Sep 6 2011 by Alison Anderson, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

PERTH Museum and Art Gallery has been picked as one of only three Scottish venues for an exhibition of the work of renowned photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe.

Mapplethorpe’s early career and relationship with singer Patti Smith was chronicled recently in the rock legend’s award-winning memoir Just Kids, and it’s believed the exhibition will include his flower studies as well as portraits of artists, writers and musicians of the 1970s and 80s

The announcement of the exhibition was made by Tate, National Galleries of Scotland and the Art Fund, as part of their Artist Rooms tour which takes modern and contemporary art collections to locations across the UK.

The Mapplethorpe exhibition will reach Perth in November 2012.

Perth and Kinross Council’s Lifelong Learning convener Liz Grant said: “We are delighted to have been chosen to exhibit the work of such a respected artist.

Warhol

“This follows on from the success of the Warhol exhibition which we attracted to Perth as part of a previous Artists Rooms tour, and is a reminder of the quality of cultural opportunities available in Perth and Kinross. It’s very exciting.”

The Robert Mapplethorpe works to go on display are taken from Artist Rooms, an inspirational collection of modern and contemporary art donated by Anthony d’Offay to Tate and National Galleries of Scotland for the nation.

The tour, now in its fourth year, is showing at 17 museums and galleries across the UK in 2012. The tour is made possible thanks to the support of national fundraising charity the Art Fund which helps UK museums and galleries to buy, show and share art.

l Robert Mapplethorpe was born in the USA in 1946 and died in 1989. His vast, provocative, and powerful body of work has established him as one of the most important artists of the 20th century. His work can be found in the collections of major museums around the world, and his legacy lives on through the work of the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation which he established in 1988 to promote photography, support museums which exhibit photographic art, and to fund medical research in the fight against AIDS and HIV-related infection.