A Friendship in Three Frames

For the first time, the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith, and Lynn Davis are hanging together in the same show. The exhibition traces a friendship that ran alongside each of their careers, one that shaped how all three came to see through a lens. Davis puts the bond simply: life itself was the art they were making. Look closely at the pictures, she says, and that freedom is still right there on the wall.

With reporting from Vanity Fair.