Flowers (working title)

https://maph.org.au/

Next year is the international Photography festival PHOTO2026. MAPh will present a headlining suite of exhibitions under the theme of ‘Show me love’. As part of this festival, this museum is developing an exhibition with the working title Flowers curated by Angela Connor, MAPh Senior Curator, across all spaces of the museum.

Love and flowers are deeply interwoven, serving as both a visual and symbolic language to explore themes of connection, intimacy and the transient nature of human relationships. In the works featured in this group exhibition, flowers are far more than ornamental; they are powerful, multi-layered symbols that engage with themes of the body, sexuality, and the delicate threshold between the organic and the erotic.

The works of Robert Mapplethorpe form a key part of this exhibition, and 29 works will be loaned from the NGA. Like many of his other subjects, Mapplethorpe’s flowers often had an erotic charge, particularly when he photographed them in close-up. His black and white photographs also carry cultural weight. Flowers like lilies and orchids have rich symbolic meanings that may reference ideas of love or even death. For the exhibition, MAPh will invite Australian artists to form a contemporary response to the flower works by Mapplethorpe. This is significant for several reasons, not just for understanding his legacy, but also for exploring how his art continues to resonate, challenge and inspire new generations of photographers.

For the exhibition, the invited Australian artists include Pat Brassington, Del Kathryn Barton, Jake Preval and Meng-Yu Yan.