LAS VEGAS, NEVADA.- The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum at The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino presents Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition, on view through February 2007. Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition explores the relationship between the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe and classical art, in particular through 16th-century Flemish Mannerist engravings. The latest in a series of collaborations between the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, this exhibition premiered at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin before traveling to the Hermitage, the Moscow House of Photography and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The exhibition will exemplify Mapplethorpe’s rapport with the elongated and elaborate forms of Mannerist art, namely the study of the human body, highlighting the underlying classicism evident in the clarity and potency of all Mapplethorpe’s subjects as well as their explosive energy.

The exhibition is organized by Germano Celant, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim and Arkady Ippolitov, Curator of Italian Prints at the Hermitage. Catalogue: An illustrated catalogue with essays by the curators accompanies the exhibition. (231 pages, HC - $50, SC - $35). Museum Hours: 9:30 AM–7:30 PM daily.