“WELCOME TO CENSORNATI” – “HOLY HOMOPHOBIA,” protestors demonstrate outside Cincinnati’s Contemporar
“WELCOME TO CENSORNATI” – “HOLY HOMOPHOBIA,” protestors demonstrate outside Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, April 1990. Photo by J. Callaway, c/o Cincinnati Enquirer. In late 1988, months before photographer Robert Mapplethorpe died of AIDS-related illness on March 9, 1989, “The Perfect Moment,” a comprehensive retrospective of the photographer’s work, opened at Philadelphia’s Institute of Contemporary Art. The show included classical nudes, sensual flowers, two portraits of semi-nude children, and five images of gay S&M, the most graphic of which appeared in an age-restricted area. In the summer of 1989, the show went on tour, stopping first at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, where it met with no public or critical outcry. In June 1989, however, two weeks before “The Perfect Moment” was set to open in Washington, D.C., the Corcoran Gallery of Art cancelled the show amid fears that it could endanger National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) appropriations in Congress. In the wake of the cancellation, Senator Jesse Helms introduced legislation that would have stopped the NEA from funding “obscene” artwork and would have required NEA grant-recipients to sign an oath declaring they would not promote obscenity; the legislation did not pass. In April 1990, when “The Perfect Moment” opened at Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center, Hamilton County prosecutors charged director Dennis Barrie and the museum itself with obscenity, the first time criminal charges had been brought against an American museum. On October 5, 1990, twenty-six years ago today, after deliberating for less than an hour, the jury acquitted Barrie and the museum of all charges. These events made up one of the great battles in America’s culture wars – forcing a national debate on, among other issues, censorship, obscenity, government funding of the arts, pornography, and homophobia. “The Perfect Moment” went on to show in hundreds of museums worldwide; Mapplethorpe’s work is housed in twelve major museums, with the largest collection of his works at the Guggenheim. #lgbthistory #lgbtherstory #lgbttheirstory #QueerHistoryMatters #HavePrideInHistory #RobertMapplethorpe (at Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center) -- source link
#lgbthistory#haveprideinhistory#queerhistorymatters#lgbttheirstory#lgbtherstory#robertmapplethorpe