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Last * obscenity and illegal use of a minor in nudity summer, the show’s “X Portfolio” sparked oriented material. debate in Congress over federal funding of art The charges stem from a photographic exhibitions. Senator Jesse Helms and retrospective, in particular from seven Congressman Richard Armey led the fight to photographs from a nationally touring show. demand a standard of “decency” for govern­ The Perfect Moment. The artist—Robert ment sponsored art programs, especially Mapplethorpe, America’s best known gay programs funded through the National photographer. for the Arts. The allegedly obscene material comes from Endowment At that time, Washington’s Corcoran the “X Portfolio,” a dozen homoerotic sexual Gallery of Art cancelled the show rather than pictures. The photographs depict fisting, be caught in the crossfire between Congress inserting a finger into a penis, inserting a and the National Endowment for the Arts. cylinder into a rectum, a self-portrait of the Instead, a privately funded gallery, the artist with a whip handle in his rectum, and Washington Project for the Arts, courageously one man urinating on another. The photo­ the show and drew record attendance. graphs showing alleged illegal use of a minor mounted Controversy has also been good for business in Cincinnati. Each day between 2,000 and 3,000 visitors—twice the usual number pay to see the show. In fact, every museum that has hosted the Mapplethorpe show, including Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Arts, has also attracted record crowds. Many people do double takes when they see the sex pictures. “At first it was shock­ ing,” said a design student who saw the show in Chicago. “Then you see the beauty of the forms. These photographs made me shift back and forth between subject matter and composi­ are candid portraits of a partially dressed tion.” young child. To be legally obscene, the U.S. Supreme These photographs are only a small part of Court has ruled a work must fit three criteria: the 175 black-and-white and color photographs does the work lack artistic, literary, political or that document all phases of Mapplethorpe’s scientific merit; does it offend contemporary art—portraits, fashion, flowers, nudes, community standards, and does it appeal to homoerotic, and explicit homosexual-sado­ prurient interests. masochistic sex. If not pornography, then what did the artist The indictments were the latest move in a intend? Mapplethorpe, who died of AIDS last four way political wrestling match between the March, seldom explained his art. But a widely Arts Center, the Citizens for Community reported story, retold in the Whitney cata­ Values—an antipomography group—and the logue, goes like this: “I would see a young kid Cincinnati and Hamilton County prosecutors’ walking down 42nd Street and then go into a offices. After a letter writing campaign by the magazine storefront, which were places I Citizens for Community Values and rumors didn't know anything about I became that the police would raid the show, the Arts obsessed with going into them and seeing what Center filed suit with the city and county to was inside these magazines. They were all determine by jury if the photographs were sealed, which made them even sexier some­ obscene. how, because you couldn’t get at them. A kid The suit was dismissed; but on April 7, gets a certain kind of reaction, which of course Cincinnati police closed the museum to the once you’ve been exposed to everything you public and videotaped the show, presumably as don’t get I got that feeling in my stomach, it’s evidence of obscenity. However, no photo­ not directly a sexual one, it’s something more graphs were confiscated. An injunction by potent than that. I thought if I could somehow U.S. District Judge Carl Rubin prevents the bring that element into art, if I could somehow city or county from seizing photographs or retain that feeling, I would be doing something harassing museum patrons. that was uniquely my own.” This controversy unfolds in a city that, Undeniably the content of some of with pride, claims to be free of adult book Mapplethorpe’s photographs makes people stores, peep shows and X-rated video rentals. uncomfortable. According to Philip Brook- Says a local art patron, “If you knew Cincin­ man, curator and director of the Washington nati like I know Cincinnati, this is a ‘clean’ Project for the Arts, “Mapplethorpe’s art city.” confronts people in the mainstream with issues This show has touched on every nerve that they’re afraid of, black men and that’s conceivable,” says Amy Banister, homosexuality.” Director of Communications at the Arts T B Y J E F F E R Y I Z U R L I N D E N