In May 1988, ten months before he died of complications of HIV/Aids at the age of 42, the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe established the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation to protect his work and to raise funds for research on the disease. This evening, 7 December, the Aids research and activism non-profit Acria will honour the foundation’s efforts at its annual holiday fundraising dinner in New York. Acria is also holding an online fundraising auction that ends tonight at 10:30pm, hosted by Paddle8, which includes a Mapplethorpe work, Flower (1986), donated by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation (est. $20,000), and a 368-page book of photographs and illustrations of flowers by the late artist (est. $295). Other artists represented in the auction include Ross Bleckner, Nan Goldin and Jasper Johns.
