With a curatorial introduction by João Ribas and a preface by Michael Ward Stout (President of the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation), the publication reproduces the 159 works from the Robert Mapplethorpe: Pictures exhibition, organized by the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in September 2018.

The exhibition catalog brings together one of the most comprehensive reviews of Mapplethorpe's work by art historian Jonathan K. Nelson, a short but penetrating foreword by Susan Sontag, and a conversation by Susan Sontag with American writer, filmmaker and artist Gary Indiana.

The exhibition, organized in close collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, contemplated the 159 works of his entire career, from the first collages and polaroids to the photographs of flowers, nudes, portraits and sexual images that made Mapplethorpe one of the most notables of the 20th century.

Robert Mapplethorpe (New York, 1946–1989, Boston) created some of the most iconic, controversial and surprising images in contemporary photography.