Robert Mapplethorpe and Gallery Curator Indicted for Obscenity in Cincinnati
An exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs, “The Perfect Moment,” opened at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, and Mapplethorpe and gallery curator were indicted on this day on obscenity charges.
Many of Mapplethorpe’s images were starkly sexually explicit.
Mapplethorpe and Barrie were later acquitted by a Hamilton County jury because the photographs did not meet the “Miller test” of obscenity (see Miller v. California, June 21, 1973).
Read rock musician Patti Smith’s moving account of her life with Robert Mapplethorp: Just Kids (2010)
Watch a short biography of Mapplethorpe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZq2sMo_kzI
Learn more about the Mapplethorpe trial: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mapplethorpelinks.html
Visit the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation web site: http://www.mapplethorpe.org/
Learn more: Patricia Morrisroe, Mapplethorpe: A Biography (1995)
See a timeline on art, culture, and censorship: http://www.ncac.org/NCAC-Interactive-Censorship-Timeline