25 years later: Cincinnati and Mapplethorpe

Cincinnati writer/artist Grace Dobush has a well-researched and well-written story in today’s Washington Post about this weekend’s activity at the Contemporary Arts Center celebrating the 25th anniversary of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe’s infamous Perfect Moment exhibition at the CAC. Events and the symposium continue through tomorrow; see the full schedule here.

Dobush does a nice job reminding readers of the local tumult in 1990, centering around the prosecution of the CAC and its director, Dennis Barrie, and their subsequent acquittal by a Hamilton County jury. She also discusses Cincinnati’s slow recovery from the culture wars that created an atmosphere where art could be prosecuted as obscenity.

“When Chris Seelbach became Cincinnati’s first openly gay City Council member in 2011 … Cincinnati’s score on the Human Rights Council’s Municipal Equality Index, which evaluates cities on support for LGBT populations, was 68,” Dobush writes. “As of 2014, it was a perfect 100. And Cincinnati son Jim Obergefell was at the center of the landmark Supreme Court decision this year to legalize gay marriage.”

Interviews include Seelbach, CAC Director Raphaela Platow, Source Cincinnati’s Julie Calvert, former Mercantile Library Director Albert Pyle and Vice Mayor David Mann. Great job, Grace!

Read the full Washington Post story here.