A 19th century sculptor obsessed with flesh and the body and a 20th century photographer celebrated for playing a key role in mobilising the sexual liberation movement in the 1970s and 80s: Auguste Rodin and Robert Mapplethorpe, a somewhat unlikely pair aligned by a mutual love of the human form.

This is the subject of Mapplethorpe Rodin, the second exhibition in Paris currently marking 25 years since Mapplethorpe’s death. Where the Grand Palais’ exhibition brings Mapplethorpe’s classicism to the forefront, Mapplethorpe Rodin does so in an entirely different way. Here, Judith Benhamou-Huet reflects on working with co-curators Hélène Pinet and Hélène Marraud to highlight the cross-generational purity of creative vision.

Robert Mapplethorpe, ‘Bill T. Jones’ 1985 © 2014 Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc. / Auguste Rodin, ‘Génie funéraire’, vers 1898, Paris, Musée Rodin, ©Paris, musée Rodin, ph. C. Baraja

Tempe Nakiska: How did you approach the task of curating the works of two such significant artists in one exhibition?
Judith Benhamou-Huet: With Mapplethorpe, most of the time you don’t actually look at his photography, it’s something else. In his early career until 1979 he was producing images which were hugely sexually orientated. Because he came from a very Catholic family he had to prove himself, his homosexuality through his photography, which was of course something that was not accepted at all by his family, particularly his father. When you are producing images that are so sexual in subject, that is the first thing the public sees – not the quality of the photography.

But after 1979 he really built a kind of neo-classical vocabulary with a lot of symmetry. This part of his production is so beautiful that you really don’t look at the other aspects of the photography. My idea came from there, to use that aspect of his work to build a dialogue between Rodin and Mapplethorpe.

TN: What about the gap between the two artists in terms of time and context?
JB-H: I think there’s no barrier between 19th and 20th century art, in terms of being an artist. When it came to choosing an artist to align with Mapplethorpe, Musée Rodin was obvious as Rodin really was very innovative, very informal, searching all the time for new forms and ideas. Both artists are very sexually orientated, they both need to show the body and flesh, they feel that the human body is very special and strong.

TN: Do you think Mapplethorpe has been overlooked as an artist to some extent because of the sexual nature of much of his work?
JB-H: When things are obviously beautiful you don’t really look at them. If a woman is ugly, you look at her in a different way. Whereas if she is beautiful, you realise her face is very iconic and that’s it. For all the rest of Mapplethorpe’s work, you don’t look at the sexual nature of them, you appreciate them as beautiful. That’s the role of such an exhibition, to help educate the viewer. Mapplethorpe is such an icon for the gay community, but it is important to show other sides to such an artist’s work.

TN: What did you learn about Mapplethorpe in the process?
JB-H: That he is a real artist. In the exhibition you can see that Rodin is taken from the 19th century to modern times and Mapplethorpe is brought to classicism. From that you can see that Mapplethorpe’s work is not about capturing handsome guys with nice bodies. Not at all. It really opens the eyes to the importance of his work in a larger context.

Mapplethorpe Rodin runs until 21st September at Musée Rodin, 79 Rue de Varenne, 75007 Paris