Divine Intervention

As far back as the late 60s, an interest in the sacred and the profane underpinned the aesthetic of artist Robert Mapplethorpe. References to Catholicism and Satanism are visible in his early collages, while later photographic works would feature crucifixes, pentagrams and halos. "A church has a certain magic and mystery for a child," he once said. "It still shows in how I arrange things. It's always little altars." A collection of his religious imagery opens at Alison Jacques in London coinciding with the birthday of French poet Arthur Rimbaud, whose iconoclastic prose-poem “A Season in Hell” gives the show its name.