0:01

Hey there, One Year listeners. Before we start the show,

0:03

I want to let you know about a story coming

0:05

up a little later. It's from

0:07

one of our partners, SAP. Is

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To learn more, head

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to sap.com/be ready and

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stick around to hear how AI can

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future-proof your business. Hey,

0:33

this is Josh Levine, the host of One Year.

0:36

I hope you're enjoying our season on 1990. This

0:39

week, we have a story from our senior

0:41

producer, Evan Chong. It's about a fight over

0:43

censorship and free expression, and I think you'll

0:45

really enjoy it. But I

0:47

am going to warn you that this episode

0:49

includes extremely graphic sexual content. So

0:52

proceed at your own risk. Here's

0:54

Evan. When Jesse McBride

0:56

was a little kid, his mom would take him

0:59

all around their neighborhood. They lived

1:01

in downtown New York in the 70s. Nobody

1:03

had a lot of money, but they did have a

1:05

community. My mother was in the kind

1:07

of punk rock scene at that time. I

1:10

remember walking a lot and going to like, I

1:13

just go to artists studios and they lived in

1:15

their studios and it was rough,

1:17

but it was very intimate in a way. They

1:20

were in the middle of one of the most

1:22

storied and creative periods in New York's history.

1:25

His creativity is at the center of

1:27

Jesse's earliest memories. There's

1:30

one moment he'll never forget. It

1:32

was in 1976, when he was about five

1:34

years old. I remember

1:37

my mom saying Robert was going to come over and take

1:39

some pictures of me. Robert was

1:41

an ambitious young photographer, and a regular at

1:43

the bar where Jesse's mom was a server.

1:46

She had posed for him before, and now it

1:48

was Jesse's turn to get his picture taken. I

1:51

just have this memory of him being in like

1:53

a leather jacket, and he had his cameras, and

1:55

there was a big window in the kitchen, and

1:58

he was sort of lit from behind. Robert

2:00

had arrived at the apartment as Jesse was

2:02

finishing up with bath time. We had

2:04

this big sink, like this giant

2:06

sink in the kitchen, and

2:08

I used to take baths in the

2:11

sink, and I remember like I got out of

2:13

the bath, tiled off and running around, and you

2:15

know, I was always naked at that. I mean,

2:17

I ran around naked all the time. And

2:21

Robert started taking pictures. As

2:24

Jesse went around the kitchen doing five-year-old

2:26

kid things, Robert gave him the occasional

2:28

direction. You know, he would

2:30

just say like, stand here, sit there, whatever.

2:32

And I felt pretty comfortable in

2:35

front of a camera, and I was a cute kid,

2:37

and I knew how to like smile and do the

2:39

right pose or whatever. And at

2:41

some point, I think I started jumping on the chair,

2:44

and then he's like, okay, just stay still.

2:47

That shot was the keeper, a

2:49

naked Jesse perched up on the back of an

2:51

armless chair next to the fridge. Legs

2:53

kind of not spread apart, but like open,

2:55

dangling down the back of the chair. And

2:58

that's kind of it. When Robert

3:00

gave a print of the photo to Jesse's mom,

3:03

she was ecstatic. Oh, hugely

3:05

proud of it. Yeah. I mean,

3:07

it was like always displayed as something that was prized.

3:10

Jesse's dad who lived in LA loved the photo

3:12

too. He put it up in the

3:14

kitchen, and it stayed there as Jesse got older, much

3:17

to the amusement of his teenage friends. I

3:20

remember like finding them gathered around

3:22

the picture and like, oh, naked

3:24

and penis. And you know, I

3:26

actually physically took it down several

3:28

times, just very embarrassed of

3:31

it and kind of tried to hide

3:33

it whenever I could. In

3:36

1990, Jesse was going off to college. Living

3:39

in his freshman dorm, he figured he could

3:41

stop worrying about the art on his parents'

3:43

walls. But he was wrong. I

3:46

started getting just calls after calls after

3:49

calls after calls. People

3:51

everywhere were talking about his picture. And

3:54

many of them didn't see it as a sweet

3:56

childhood moment. They were claiming

3:58

that it was something else entirely. that

4:01

it was child pornography. The

4:06

family friend who'd taken Jesse's picture back in the

4:08

1970s was Robert Naplesorpe. In

4:12

the decades since, he's become one of

4:14

the most famous photographers in the world, and

4:17

one of the most controversial. In

4:20

1990, his work ignited a firestorm.

4:24

And when Jesse's portrait reached a museum in Cincinnati, it

4:27

would be at the center of a vicious fight

4:29

over obscenity and the First Amendment, one

4:32

that threatened the future of art in America. The

4:35

whole world is watching a city which, after

4:37

Robert Naplesorpe, will never be the

4:39

same. How dare you

4:41

decide for everybody else what they can see?

4:45

Censorship has to constantly find something to

4:47

thrive on. It says,

4:49

A, me feeding. Now it is

4:51

feeding on art. This

4:59

is one year, 1990. Art on trial. This

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6:47

I captured something at a

6:49

certain time about a

6:51

certain place, New York, that

6:54

can't be captured anymore. This

6:57

is Robert Mapplethorpe in a 1988 documentary by the

7:00

BBC. And that period's over

7:02

somehow, you know, things have changed. As

7:05

New York changed, so did Mapplethorpe's work. He

7:08

moved on from the rough-edged spontaneity of

7:11

his portrait of Jesse McBride. His

7:13

photographs instead became masterpieces of form

7:15

and technique, exquisitely composed

7:17

and gorgeously lit studio shots.

7:20

And those pictures had turned Mapplethorpe

7:23

into an art world superstar. A

7:26

dozen years after photographing Jesse for free,

7:28

wealthy patrons were paying Mapplethorpe $10,000

7:31

to take their portraits. His

7:33

prints sold for record prices. And

7:35

in 1988, the Whitney Museum in New York

7:37

opened a major solo exhibition of his work.

7:40

And I just happened to be in New

7:42

York and I went to the Whitney to

7:44

see the Robert Mapplethorpe show. I'd seen a

7:46

few Mapplethorpes before that. Dennis Berry

7:48

was the director of another museum, the

7:51

Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati. And it

7:53

was a wonderful show. The work was

7:55

beautiful. On the gallery

7:57

walls were portraits of celebrities like Richard

7:59

Gere. in Arnold Schwarzenegger, haunting

8:02

still lifes of flowers. And

8:04

there were maple-thorpe's almost classical explorations

8:07

of the nude male form. That's

8:09

what struck me more than anything else.

8:11

The nudes were beautiful, powerfully

8:14

photographed. He wasn't the only

8:16

one in the gallery captivated by them. There

8:19

were two or three young women viewing

8:21

the exhibition. There were multiple images

8:23

of the same model. They

8:26

were able to identify him by his penis. I

8:30

thought, wow, very sharp. Dennis

8:33

was always on the lookout for new art for

8:35

his museum. And I thought, I

8:37

really would like to get this exhibition for

8:39

Cincinnati. The Whitney had no plans

8:41

to send its show on tour. But

8:44

the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia

8:46

was putting together its own retrospective of

8:48

maple-thorpe's work. And that exhibition was going

8:51

to travel around the country. When

8:53

Dennis called up the curator there, she told

8:55

him it was perfect timing. Another museum

8:57

had just pulled out. And she said, we

8:59

have an opening. And I said, we'll take

9:02

it. When she says, great, there's

9:04

an opening because another museum dropped out. Was there

9:06

a moment where you're like, hmm, no, there was

9:08

a moment like, sounds like a good opportunity. Maybe

9:13

I'm stupid. Dennis

9:17

Berry's museum had been established in 1939, making it

9:19

one of the earliest in the

9:22

country dedicated to contemporary art. In

9:25

the 80s, it was on the second floor

9:27

of an office building in downtown Cincinnati. You

9:30

know, you walked up some stairs and

9:32

then there was a wide open center

9:34

area under a dome. And

9:36

I just fell in love with that place. Mary

9:39

Magner joined the staff of the Contemporary Art Center

9:41

in 1983. The

9:44

CAC was known for putting on shows that were

9:46

always a little edgy. The curators

9:48

were always looking for things that sort of pushed

9:50

the boundaries of what you were expecting. That

9:53

earned the CAC a loyal following in town,

9:55

but not the wide audiences of the symphony

9:58

or the big Cincinnati Art Museum. We

10:00

were sort of like a little secret. I

10:02

think there were only ten of us full-time.

10:06

We were sort of like winging it, I think, a lot

10:08

of the times. Mary managed

10:10

the CAC bookstore. She sold postcards

10:12

and all sorts of art books,

10:14

including the catalogs of exhibitions featured

10:16

in the museum. When

10:18

the catalogs for the Robert Maplethorpe show arrived, she

10:20

opened one of them up. She

10:23

was curious to see the images coming to

10:25

the CAC because she wasn't super familiar with

10:27

his work. Right from

10:29

his postcards, we carried postcards

10:31

with his flowers and his

10:33

portraits. So we

10:36

got the catalogs and I was looking through them and

10:38

I thought, whoa, this is going to

10:43

be interesting. The

10:46

exhibition coming to the CAC had a lot more

10:48

photos than the one in New York. This

10:51

show had two pictures of naked

10:53

children, including the portrait of five-year-old

10:55

Jesse McBride standing on a chair

10:57

after bath time. It

11:00

would also feature what Maplethorpe called

11:02

the X-portfolio. The

11:04

X-portfolio was a rarely displayed

11:06

collection of graphic sexual images.

11:09

There were 13 of them in

11:11

all, depicting various sadomasochistic acts. One

11:14

shows a man's fist up someone else's anus.

11:17

There's a photo of a man urinating into

11:19

another's mouth. And another shows

11:22

Maplethorpe himself with a bullet

11:24

inserted in his rectum. In

11:26

that BBC interview, Maplethorpe said he wanted

11:29

to document the gay leather subculture he'd

11:31

been part of in the 70s, a

11:33

scene that was vanishing in the face

11:36

of AIDS. I felt like almost an

11:38

obligation to record those things, to

11:41

make the images that nobody seen before and do

11:43

it in a way that's, you know, aesthetic. Maplethorpe

11:47

had helped select the photographs for the show to

11:49

represent his work in all its facets. There

11:51

would be more than 170 images in

11:54

all, from his recent floral pictures back

11:56

to Polaroids of his earliest muse and

11:58

former lover, the musician Patti Smith. The

12:06

title of the trans new retrospective was

12:08

Robert Mabel-Thort, The Perfect Moment.

12:10

You know, that's my rush in doing

12:12

photography. You know, it's like you get

12:15

to a place where it's really

12:17

kind of like you don't know why it's

12:19

happening, but it's happening. You've like somehow

12:22

tapped into a space that's

12:24

magic. The Perfect Moment

12:26

opened in Philadelphia in December 1988. The

12:30

art critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer raved about

12:32

the show. He wrote that Robert

12:34

Mabel-Thort had marked his place in art history

12:36

in a career of less than 20 years.

12:41

Tragically, that was all the time

12:43

that Mabel-Thort would have. I

12:45

was asleep when he died. I

12:48

had called the hospital to say one more

12:50

good night, but he had

12:52

gone under beneath layers of

12:54

morphine. This

12:56

is Patti Smith from the audiobook of her

12:59

memoir, Just Kids. I

13:01

held the receiver and listened to his

13:03

labored breathing through the phone, knowing

13:05

I would never hear him again. Robert

13:09

Mabel-Thort died on March 9th, 1989. He

13:13

had been sick with AIDS for some time. In

13:16

his final self-portraits, he's gaunt and

13:18

shockingly frail. Looking at

13:20

him, you'd never know he was just 42 years old. Overnight,

13:25

the Perfect Moment exhibition transformed

13:27

into a memorial, a

13:29

place to gather and reflect on what he'd given to

13:31

the world. But

13:34

these assessments of Mabel-Thort's life and legacy

13:36

didn't stay in the galleries for long.

13:39

Within months of his death, the conversation

13:41

moved to the U.S. Congress. The

13:44

irony crowd. Well

13:46

I'm sure that they

13:49

found some artistic merit in

13:51

that Mabel-Thort photo

13:54

with a bull whip sticking out of his rear end.

13:57

The sorriest kind. of

14:01

so-called art. Jesse

14:04

Helms was a Republican senator from North

14:06

Carolina. He would be the

14:08

man leading the nation into an unprecedented

14:11

controversy over the limits of free expression.

14:15

It all started in May 1989, when

14:18

Helms discovered a work called Piss Christ,

14:20

in which the artist Andre Serrano had

14:22

photographed a plastic crucifix immersed in urine.

14:25

Mr. President, he's not an artist, he's

14:27

a jerk. And

14:30

he's toning the American people, and

14:32

I resent it. What

14:34

infuriated Helms the most was that

14:36

this alleged blasphemy had received federal

14:39

funding from the National Endowment for

14:41

the Arts. Helms

14:43

and other conservatives pledged to investigate

14:45

the NEA. They demanded

14:47

to know what else it had sanctioned

14:49

with taxpayer money. And they

14:52

did not like what they found. Members

14:54

of Congress are also outraged by the

14:56

endowment's funding of the late photographer Robert

14:58

Maplethorpe. They were

15:00

alarmed to discover a

15:02

$30,000 grant to the Perfect Moment

15:05

exhibition, which they said was morally

15:07

reprehensible trash. Maplethorpe

15:09

was a talented photographer. He

15:12

took some good pictures. But

15:14

the ones we are talking about are

15:18

pictures that deliberately

15:20

promoted homosexuality and

15:23

child malorn station. Again

15:26

and again, Jesse Helms conflated

15:28

Maplethorpe's S&M photos with his

15:30

pictures of children, invoking the

15:32

false trope that gay men were sexual predators.

15:36

A conservative Christian group singled out the portrait of

15:38

Jesse McBride, claiming that

15:40

it was pornography created for

15:43

pedophile homosexuals. Which

15:45

is so ridiculous looking at the photograph. You

15:47

know, clearly it wasn't child pornography. Jesse

15:50

McBride rejects the idea that Maplethorpe had

15:52

sexualized him. I just

15:54

don't... I don't buy it. The

15:56

actual experience of that photo being taken was

15:59

completely innocent. It's a kid being

16:01

naked, which is what kids are supposed to be. But

16:04

to Helms and his allies, what Jesse thought

16:06

didn't matter. More than 100 members

16:09

of Congress signed a letter to the

16:11

NEA, expressing their outrage over the Maplethorpe

16:13

show. The letter ended with

16:16

a threat. If the NEA has

16:18

enough money to fund this type of project,

16:20

then perhaps the NEA has too much

16:23

money to handle responsibly. I

16:27

was at a meeting of the

16:30

Association of Heart Museum Directors in

16:32

Rhode Island. A few

16:34

days later, Dennis Berry of the Contemporary Arts

16:36

Center was sitting in an auditorium when the

16:38

president of his organization took the stage. And

16:41

he said, I have a terrible

16:43

announcement to make. The

16:45

Corcoran Gallery in Washington has

16:48

withdrawn from the Maplethorpe

16:50

exhibition for fear of the political

16:52

reprisals. That was

16:54

a gasp in the audience. After a

16:57

contentious debate, the Corcoran Board voted to

16:59

oust the Maplethorpe photos. Fearing an

17:01

uproar from conservatives in Congress and

17:03

a punitive cut in funding. And

17:06

I was sitting there with a friend

17:09

from San Diego, and

17:11

he leaned over to me and he said, do you

17:14

know anybody who's taking that show? And

17:17

I said, yes, I am. And he

17:19

said to me, you're fucked. He

17:22

said, you're fucked. I

17:24

thought, yeah, I am. The

17:27

Maplethorpe exhibition wasn't coming to Dennis' museum

17:29

in Cincinnati for another 10 months. In

17:32

the meantime, the museum world accused

17:34

DC's Corcoran Gallery of cowardice

17:36

and betrayal. Before the

17:39

year was up, its director resigned under

17:41

pressure. Dennis swore

17:43

that he would take a different path

17:45

in Cincinnati. I just thought we

17:47

can't do it. We cannot back

17:49

down over political fears

17:52

and censorship. He

17:54

decided to call a meeting of the Contemporary Arts

17:56

Center's board. He was going to show

17:59

them every photo from the Maplethorpe show. Then

18:01

they could make up their own minds about whether

18:03

it was art or smut. We

18:06

were in a big conference room looking

18:08

around a table and looking at all

18:10

these images, and I know that some

18:12

of them were probably apps were shocking

18:14

for some of the board members.

18:17

They looked at Naked Jessie in his mom's

18:19

kitchen and a little girl with her genitals

18:21

exposed as she lifts up her skirt. And

18:24

they saw all the graphic S&M

18:26

photos in Maplethorpe's ex-portfolio. And

18:29

I remember one of my board members said,

18:31

so what's this? And I said, well, it's

18:33

called fisting. And she said, oh,

18:35

I've never heard of that. I was listening. It

18:38

was so funny. It just made

18:40

me laugh. Oh, fisting, what's that all about?

18:43

Although the content of the ex-portfolio is

18:45

explicit, Maplethorpe shot it in the same

18:47

classical style of his other work. The

18:50

figures appear almost like Roman

18:52

statuary, if Roman statues wore

18:54

leather bondage gear. Seeing it

18:57

all laid out in the conference

18:59

room, the board members agreed that

19:01

Maplethorpe's art should be displayed in

19:03

Cincinnati. The board voted unanimously to

19:05

present the exhibition. There

19:08

were still several cities to go before the

19:11

traveling exhibition would arrive in April 1990. As

19:14

the show made its way across America,

19:16

Dennis paid close attention to see what

19:19

he was in for. The

19:21

next stop was Hartford, Connecticut, and

19:24

nothing really happened. They had

19:26

two little old ladies with signs, and

19:30

then went on to Berkeley. And you knew

19:32

nothing was going to happen in Berkeley, and

19:34

nothing did. Did you think maybe

19:36

after seeing it go off more or

19:38

less without a hitch in Connecticut and

19:40

in California, maybe you're OK? Yeah.

19:44

Yeah, it was naive enough and hopeful

19:47

enough. But in Washington,

19:49

Senator Jesse Helms was just getting

19:52

started. I want senators to come over

19:54

here. If they have any doubt, and

19:56

look at the pictures, don't believe

19:58

the Washington Post. believe the New York

20:00

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20:04

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for the fourth year in a row. For

21:15

Monty Laub, it all started with a phone

21:17

call. He'd just been named

21:20

the president of an organization called

21:22

Citizens for Community Values, based in

21:24

Cincinnati. It is the largest local

21:26

traditional family values group in the

21:28

country. I think I was

21:30

on the job maybe a week or

21:32

two, and I got

21:35

a call from Jesse Helms' office.

21:39

And they said, listen, this exhibit

21:41

is gonna come to Cincinnati. And

21:45

we think you've got a major

21:47

First Amendment fight on your hands. Jesse

21:49

Helms had something he wanted to show

21:52

Monty. So he got summoned to Washington.

21:55

It was kind of like some kind of a mystery

21:57

novel. They had like one of his

21:59

staff members. meet me at

22:01

a back door on a Saturday morning and

22:03

he just gave me like a brown vanilla

22:05

envelope with the images. When you

22:08

took these images out of the envelope, what did

22:10

you think? I was like, whoa, that's, this is

22:12

pretty wild. Whether

22:16

it was the fisting, whether it

22:18

was the bullwhip of the anus, whether

22:20

it was the golden showers, I mean,

22:22

it was not your run-of-the-mill pornography. It

22:25

was shocking to say the least. The

22:28

news staff told Monty that they had reached out

22:30

to him for a reason. We

22:32

know the history of Cincinnati. We

22:34

know what you've done. Because

22:37

for decades, Cincinnati had been

22:39

the national epicenter of the

22:41

fight against obscenity. Smut

22:44

peddlers do not have the

22:46

right to contaminate our society.

22:50

It started in the 1950s with a

22:52

group called Citizens for Decent Literature. In

22:55

films like this one, they warned

22:57

of how easy it is for

22:59

a young person to fall under

23:01

the sway of pornography. He is

23:04

even enticed to enter the world

23:06

of homosexuals, lesbians, sadists, masochists. In

23:09

the 70s, law enforcement took the anti-Smut

23:12

movement to another level. When local officials

23:14

began a drive to rid the city

23:16

of adult bookstores and theaters. The

23:19

police and prosecutors chased off Cincinnati's

23:22

massage perlers and strip clubs. Most

23:25

infamously, they convicted Hustler publisher

23:27

Larry Flint on obscenity charges.

23:30

So we have this long history of people in

23:33

the community saying, hey, no, no, this is not

23:35

good. We don't want this. If

23:37

people are going to do this, let them go elsewhere. Monty

23:40

Lobb and the Citizens for Community Values

23:42

stayed vigilant. They were

23:45

on the lookout for adult video stores,

23:47

X-rated table channels. The

23:51

Supreme Court had ruled that every community

23:53

set its own standard for what's obscene.

23:56

Monty feared that if his group failed to

23:58

act even one time, It would

24:01

create a dangerous precedent. Somebody

24:03

down the road could say, well, since Natty

24:05

accepted this, then this must be their

24:07

new set of community values. So

24:10

when he was handed an envelope of

24:12

Robert Maplethorpe's photos, he knew

24:14

he couldn't let them be displayed in his

24:16

hometown. Because it's about the

24:18

individual's dignity. From a Christian worldview, we're all

24:20

made in the image of God. So

24:23

whether it's that child, that innocent child with

24:26

their genitalia exposed, or it's

24:29

the fisting picture, is

24:31

that the kind of thing that we want to put in public

24:33

art galleries? What's next to your art?

24:36

People having sex with animals? Images

24:39

of people having sex with dead people? Where?

24:43

Where do we draw the line? Jesse

24:46

Helms had contacted the right guy.

24:49

Yeah, that's how it all started. It's just, put

24:52

this in the hands of these people, and they know what to do.

24:57

In February 1990, with

24:59

about six weeks to go before

25:01

the exhibition opened, Citizens for Community

25:03

Values launched a public campaign to

25:06

stop pornographic art from being shown

25:08

in Cincinnati. You're not

25:10

talking Michelangelo's David,

25:13

or Picasso, or Monet. I

25:16

mean, these are actual, real

25:18

life images. And

25:21

they sent out 30,000 mailings. Dennis

25:23

Berry had hoped the Contemporary Art Center

25:25

might get through the exhibition without much

25:28

trouble. Now he discovered these

25:30

letters going around the city that were

25:32

making disturbing claims about his museum. That

25:35

we were bringing child pornography to Cincinnati.

25:37

We got one at my house. Monty

25:40

Lob spoke out against what he

25:42

called the use of pre-cubescent children

25:44

as nude models and said

25:46

that the S&M photos were not

25:48

in the community's best interest, and

25:50

Citizens for Community Values was gathering

25:52

support. suddenly

26:00

realized they were initiating a

26:02

huge campaign to bring us

26:04

down. Monty

26:06

Lob and his allies were arguing

26:09

that Mapletherp's art wasn't just immoral,

26:11

it was illegal. Free speech is

26:14

not absolute. There are exceptions to free

26:16

speech. One of them is obscenity. Ohio

26:19

had laws against publicly displaying

26:21

obscene material. And the way

26:23

Monty saw it, these photos clearly fit

26:25

the definition. And so our role was

26:27

just to behind the scenes

26:29

talk with law enforcement and

26:31

say, hey, just want you to know so

26:33

you could do your research to see whether you think you

26:36

can prosecute these or not. What were you

26:38

hoping would happen? Well, I think you

26:40

were hoping is that the contemporary art center

26:42

would say, you know, most

26:45

of the images are fantastic. They're fine.

26:48

But these that are this, let's take

26:50

this out. Let's do that. And is

26:52

that censorship? No, again, it's

26:54

not because we're not the ones that can censor.

26:56

It's only the government can censor. But you're putting

26:59

pressure on the government. You're asking them to get

27:01

involved. Yeah. Well, you know, they represent us, right?

27:04

There's the law. If there's a

27:06

reasonable suspicion or this is the kind

27:08

of thing that ought to go to our jury, do

27:10

your job. Why would you

27:12

selectively enforce? Enforce all the laws.

27:16

Early on, Monty found an important ally.

27:19

The local sheriff had run adult bookstores out of

27:21

town back in the 70s. Now

27:24

he told the press that

27:26

Maplethorpe's photos were certainly criminally

27:28

obscene. We knew we

27:30

had a very fanatical sheriff and

27:33

he had said that he was going

27:35

to take us down. The county prosecutor

27:37

agreed that the show needed to be

27:39

investigated. There is a law

27:41

in Ohio that prohibits the possession,

27:43

displaying or presentation of those matters

27:45

which are deemed obscene. And

27:48

if the material was declared obscene, the

27:50

chief of police warned that the photos could

27:52

be seized and arrest warrants could be issued.

27:56

If any of this happened, it

27:58

would be an American first. No

28:01

art museum had ever been prosecuted

28:03

for obscenity in the nation's history.

28:05

A conviction could mean grave consequences

28:08

for the entire art world. But

28:10

law enforcement couldn't take any action

28:13

yet, because the museum hadn't actually

28:15

done anything. There were still

28:17

two weeks before the exhibit would even arrive

28:19

in town. From my point of view, these

28:21

were all people that hadn't seen it. So I

28:23

don't see how you could make those judgments without seeing it.

28:26

Bob Swaney was the preparator of the Contemporary

28:28

Art Center. It would be his

28:30

job to put the art on display. And

28:32

the museum was making some special plans for

28:35

how to arrange the Maplethorpe exhibit. As

28:37

a legal precaution, the most controversial images

28:39

would be placed in a separate room,

28:42

and nobody under 18 would be allowed into

28:44

the show. I thought all of that

28:46

was a bad idea, but that was my personal opinion,

28:48

and it wasn't up to me. I think

28:51

that's censorship. I don't want anybody telling me what

28:53

I can look at and what I can't look at. I'd

28:56

like to make my own decisions. The

28:58

boxes of Maplethorpe's art finally arrived at the

29:00

museum at the end of March, and

29:03

Bob became one of the first people in

29:05

Cincinnati to see all 175 photographs in person.

29:10

We start opening crates and setting it up around the

29:12

room and putting it on the wall. And

29:15

I do recall looking at

29:17

some images and thinking, okay, that's

29:20

disturbing, and that's good.

29:22

You know, let's be disturbing. Let's shake things

29:24

up a little bit. That

29:27

was the kind of art you wanted to see at the Contemporary Art

29:29

Center. Owen Fenson was the

29:31

art critic at the Cincinnati Inquirer. When

29:33

you go to a show and it

29:35

did something that you just didn't expect

29:37

it ever to do to you. On

29:40

Tuesday, April 3rd, Owen was invited to

29:43

a press preview at the Contemporary Art

29:45

Center. The exhibit was ready,

29:47

and it was his job to tell

29:50

Cincinnati if the perfect moment had artistic

29:52

merit. On the basis

29:54

of his work, he wrote, would Maplethorpe

29:56

deserve the mantle of greatness? That

29:59

long list. and sonatians will

30:01

have the opportunity to judge

30:03

for themselves. That's

30:06

Owen reading from his review. He

30:08

called maplethorpe far from perfect. He wrote

30:10

that his framing is often trivial and

30:13

that some of his art is derivative. But

30:16

no one ignores his work because many

30:18

of maplethorpe's photographs are

30:21

incredibly beautiful. He

30:24

described the artist's floral images as

30:26

pure, fragile, captured at a

30:28

perfect instant. And he also

30:30

considered the photos of the children, of

30:32

Jesse and the little girl. The little

30:35

girl sitting with her

30:37

dress pulled up is an image of

30:40

pure innocence. The

30:42

picture is the perfect illustration

30:45

of the phrase evil

30:47

is in the eye of the beholder. The

30:50

photo of the young boy is

30:52

equally harmless. And

30:56

as for the sadomasochistic pictures, he

30:58

said most visitors would never notice them if

31:00

they weren't alerted to their presence. It

31:03

is not so much what he photographed

31:06

as the way he

31:08

presented his photographs as

31:10

works of fine art

31:12

worthy of museum display

31:15

for that he was after

31:17

all an original.

31:23

The city's biggest newspaper had given its

31:25

stamp of approval. But

31:27

what was going to happen next? Nobody knew.

31:30

An exhibition of maplethorpe's photographs

31:32

has been touring the country. It

31:34

has now reached Cincinnati. The show is scheduled

31:36

to open to the public Saturday. A

31:40

late snow fell over Cincinnati on Friday, April

31:42

6. It was the

31:44

night before the show's official opening. That

31:46

evening, they would allow in museum

31:48

members. Nobody knew how

31:51

many people to expect, how they would react,

31:54

or if there was going to be trouble. A couple

31:58

thousand people show up for this. opening.

32:01

And so people had to wait outside for

32:03

hours. I'd get them in a

32:06

line and get them to come in, let

32:08

so many in, control the crowd. There

32:10

were so many people in line, Bob Swaney

32:12

didn't have time to be nervous about whether

32:14

the galleries were about to get raided. Well,

32:16

you know, I might have been a little

32:18

too worried whether there was ice at the

32:20

bar that night. The hours

32:23

went by and the line worked its way

32:25

through the museum. And nobody

32:27

seemed to be upset after seeing Maplethorpe's

32:29

photo. I don't think anybody came to

32:31

be offended. I think people were interested

32:33

in art and they came to see art. They

32:35

did. So from your perspective, was this a successful

32:37

night? Yeah, I never ran out of ice. And

32:40

the police never showed. It

32:44

was truly a wonderful night. We celebrated

32:46

that we had dodged the bullet, that,

32:48

you know, things would be fine. Okay, we'll

32:50

open and life will go on. So

32:55

the next morning I got up exhausted from the whole

32:57

thing. I went down there, I think I was wearing

32:59

an old sweatshirt and a pair of jeans, you know.

33:04

When the doors opened to the public at 9

33:06

a.m., Mary Magner was at her post in the

33:08

bookstore. And it was

33:10

packed. People were really

33:12

excited. You know, it was historical.

33:16

Just like the night before, the visitors seemed respectful

33:18

and supportive. And nobody

33:21

had come in flashing a badge. And I remember,

33:23

I thought, well, okay, we're fine. I

33:27

was standing there with Dennis Berry and he looked at all the people coming

33:29

in. And he

33:31

said, I think we're safe. I don't think anything's going

33:34

to happen. Owen Fenson

33:36

from the Cincinnati Inquirer wasn't so sure. And

33:39

I said, Dennis, perhaps you've missed the part

33:42

that four men have gone in that are carrying guns on their

33:44

hips. And

33:46

they're each accompanying a woman. And

33:49

they are obviously sheriffs or marshals.

33:52

And I've seen the same man go in four

33:54

times with different women. That's a grand jury. That's

33:58

when it was over. Oh my. Owen

34:03

was right. It was a grand jury,

34:06

and they were being taken on a reconnaissance

34:08

mission to the museum. After

34:10

they walked through the Maplethorpe show, they

34:12

headed back to the courthouse to decide

34:15

if what they just saw was obscene.

34:18

And then that's when the police came. And

34:20

speculation is over. It happened. What

34:22

you're watching now is the Cincinnati police as

34:24

they made their move today against the Contemporary

34:26

Arts Center. They were members of the

34:28

Vice Squad. This is my sordid life.

34:31

And they came up to me instantly. The

34:34

police told Dennis that both the

34:36

museum and he personally had been

34:38

indicted on obscenity charges for displaying

34:40

five of the S&M pictures from

34:42

Maplethorpe's ex-portfolio. He was also

34:44

charged with illegal use of a minor

34:47

in nudity-oriented material for photos of a

34:49

boy and a girl with their genitals

34:51

exposed. Dennis was facing

34:53

possible prison time. But it

34:55

seemed unthinkable was now happening. For

34:58

the first time, the government had declared

35:00

that art in a museum was criminally

35:03

obscene. It turned out they were not

35:05

only there to serve indictments, but gather

35:07

evidence. They made everybody go out. Please

35:09

leave the premises. And

35:12

then they closed the galleries while

35:14

they documented everything. The

35:16

order to leave left hundreds of paying

35:18

customers upset and angry. That's what the

35:21

team said. It's just insane. And

35:24

this crowd kind of got bigger and bigger

35:26

outside. They heard it on the

35:28

news that it was closed, so that brought more

35:30

people down. I think it's horrible. I

35:33

think that it's an infringement on our First

35:35

Amendment. It seemed like people

35:37

just came out of the woodwork. People

35:39

were lined up on these two staircases

35:41

that went to the second balcony level.

35:43

And they were angry. I think it's

35:45

un-American. These sisters are the most un-American,

35:48

calming people I've ever met. There were

35:50

just people coming. More and

35:52

more people coming. Standing down below, waving

35:55

signs, chanting and chanting and

35:57

chanting. My

36:00

biggest fear, quite honestly, was that we

36:02

were going to have a real scuffle

36:05

with the police. So I just

36:07

set up a microphone so the dentist could

36:09

come out and talk to them. So be

36:11

patient, be calm, we want you not to

36:13

get hurt. As chaos

36:15

built outside, the police videotaped

36:17

the exhibition. After

36:20

a few hours, they were done. They

36:22

had all the evidence they needed. The

36:28

Contemporary Arts Center reopened after the police

36:30

left. But Dennis and his

36:32

staff struggled to carry on, not knowing

36:34

if the police might come back the next day and

36:36

shut them down for good. Oh,

36:39

I was destroyed. I was destroyed by

36:41

what had just happened. They

36:43

had finally violated an

36:46

art institution, a museum. It

36:49

was devastating. We were

36:51

appalled. We

36:54

couldn't believe that it actually happened, that

36:56

they really came through with it. Well,

36:58

it's not like glee and like I'm throwing a

37:00

party. Monty Lobb and Citizens

37:02

for Community Values had demanded action against

37:05

the Maplethorpe Show and now they've gotten

37:07

it. Okay, good. We feel

37:09

like they're doing their job. It

37:11

was just kind of like, all right, well, let's see where it goes

37:13

from here. The police

37:16

raid of the Contemporary Arts Center would be

37:18

all over the national news. And

37:20

a battle over obscenity in Cincinnati was about

37:23

to become an all out culture

37:25

war. And that's when, you know,

37:27

it took on another life of its own. It

37:30

was already ramped up to like maybe eight or

37:32

nine and now it goes way up above 10. We'll

37:37

be right back. Another

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learn more. Yes,

38:50

we are going what we will do is

38:52

we will put someone at the end of

38:54

the line. You're in line. We will stay

38:56

open until you see us. The Contemporary Arts

38:59

Center opened early the day after the raid

39:01

to accommodate all the curious visitors. I thought

39:04

it was an excellent exhibit. I really did. I

39:07

did not see people gapping or turning

39:09

away going, oh, that's horrible. I wasn't in

39:11

that. So what, Adam? No, it's beautiful. There

39:13

is. Yeah. It's

39:16

really good. And to have pictures

39:18

of new children romping around their

39:20

living room and to say it's

39:22

child pornography, it's absurd. It's completely

39:24

ridiculous. The trial

39:26

against the CAC and its director, Dennis Barry,

39:28

wouldn't begin for months. In

39:30

the meantime, a judge ruled that the museum could

39:32

keep its doors open. You can

39:35

come and see it if you want if you don't stay

39:37

home. Even if you

39:39

came to the Contemporary Arts Center, if you

39:41

just wanted to see the portraits and the

39:44

flowers, you could do that. You're not going

39:46

to accidentally get hurt. Mary

39:49

Magner says that not everyone was supportive.

39:52

Packages arrived at the museum filled with

39:54

feces. And the Robert Maplethorpe

39:56

t-shirts the staff wore made them targets.

40:00

tree right after work. People

40:02

would pull their children away from

40:04

us. For Dennis Berry, the

40:07

worst were the phone calls he got at his house. How

40:10

is this order going to kill your children? Death

40:12

threats. No exaggeration. Monty

40:16

Lob is very clear that Citizens for

40:18

Community Values was not behind any of

40:20

this. He says he got death threats

40:22

himself. But even as the

40:24

danger ratcheted up, Monty had no

40:26

regrets about his decision to speak out

40:28

against the Maplethorpe show. I

40:30

really believe in the position and stance that

40:32

we took and how we took it. We

40:35

wouldn't have been doing our mission if we didn't

40:37

call attention to it. Ironically, the

40:39

effort to stop people from seeing the

40:42

entire show has made the Maplethorpe exhibit

40:44

the hottest ticket in town. We

40:48

were so busy. There were so many people. We

40:51

had never had those kind of crowds before.

40:53

It was nuts. Over the course

40:55

of seven weeks, more than 81,000 people came to see the

40:57

show. More

41:00

visitors than they typically have in an entire

41:02

year. All kinds of people came.

41:04

Julia Child came. I love that. When

41:06

Julia Child walked in, I just

41:08

died. I can still see her in her little

41:11

suit. You can't miss her. She was 17th

41:13

all. And she loved the show. There

41:16

were memorable non-celebrity visitors too. Like

41:18

the Ohio farmer who heard a radio

41:20

story about the controversy while riding his

41:22

tractor. He said he turned off

41:25

his tractor, walked into his house,

41:27

got his car keys and drove downtown in his

41:29

truck because he was going to be damned. There

41:31

were people telling him he couldn't see something he

41:33

wanted to see. I just love that.

41:35

We couldn't have asked for a pair of six S. The

41:41

Perfect Moment show finished its run on

41:43

May 26th, 1990, and was packed up

41:45

and shipped to the next museum in

41:47

Boston. The record crowds

41:49

were apparent proof that Maplethorpe's photos

41:51

were a match for Cincinnati's community

41:54

values. So was a

41:56

poll that showed a substantial majority of

41:58

residents supported the images being shown. But

42:00

that didn't change the fact that a court battle

42:03

was looming. As the controversy

42:05

drags on, more Cincinnatians say they are

42:07

embarrassed by it, and they don't see

42:09

much relief in sight as the city

42:12

moves ahead with its case against the

42:14

art museum. Cincinnatians

42:16

weren't the only ones getting notoriety they

42:18

hadn't asked for. It was my

42:20

first year in college, and so I just

42:23

got this, like, instant fame on campus, and,

42:25

like, 20 people a day were like, are

42:27

you the payful art kid? It had been 14 years

42:30

since Jesse McBride jumped up naked onto a

42:32

chair in his mom's kitchen while her friend

42:34

Robert took his picture. Now

42:36

that photo was about to become

42:38

evidence in an obscenity trial, and

42:40

U.S. senators were declaring him a

42:42

victim of exploitation. It was

42:44

very bizarre. It was just I couldn't, like,

42:47

People magazine were like, can we come to

42:49

your campus and interview you and take pictures?

42:51

And they did. It seemed like

42:53

all of a sudden everybody wanted to talk to

42:55

him. There were a lot of, like, were you

42:57

violated? You know, there was all that stuff, and

42:59

of course I was like, no, it was just

43:01

a family friend taking pictures. I

43:04

was totally innocent, and I was

43:06

not forced to do anything. Jesse made

43:08

his strongest statement when a reporter and photographer for The

43:10

Village Voice stopped by for an interview, and then they

43:12

were like, can we take a picture? And do you

43:14

want to – hey, do you – hey,

43:18

do you want to recreate the picture? I

43:20

was like, sure, you want me to take my clothes off? So

43:22

I whipped my clothes off and sat on the

43:24

back of a chair and spread my legs, and,

43:26

you know, they took the picture and then was

43:29

in The Village Voice within a few weeks. Jesse

43:32

was now a legal adult. He

43:34

was sending a clear message. Fuck

43:36

you. This was not child

43:38

pornography. This is an innocent thing. In

43:42

the fall of 1990, a jury

43:44

of eight residents of Hamilton County, Ohio,

43:46

would decide whether they agreed with Jesse.

43:49

Even the mood in Cincinnati was tense.

44:00

this town. This is Cincinnati news anchor Jerry

44:02

Springer, yes that Jerry Springer, on September 24th

44:04

1990, the day the trial against Dennis Berry

44:06

and the Contemporary

44:09

Arts Center began. The trial started off with

44:11

a bang at least outside the courtroom it

44:14

did. Hundreds

44:17

of demonstrators marched outside the courthouse.

44:20

Many of them were members of

44:22

Cincinnati's gay community. Police did not

44:24

make any arrests today although sheriff's

44:27

deputies were wearing rubber gloves worried

44:29

apparently about disease. It

44:31

was obvious to the protesters what had been

44:33

driving the outrage that this art

44:36

was only on trial because it included

44:38

images of gay men taken by another

44:40

gay man who had died of AIDS. We

44:42

feel that this issue is such a strong one that we

44:45

had to make our presence here. This

44:48

has nothing to do with homosexuality. I mean this

44:50

is a big myth. What this

44:52

has to do is with the Ohio Revised Code it

44:55

doesn't differentiate between heterosexual homosexual

44:57

sex but it is true

44:59

that you know some people who were anti

45:01

maple Thor did evoke it including Jesse Helms.

45:04

So that's what it's all about garbage

45:07

such as pictures by Robert

45:09

maple Thorpe a

45:11

known homosexual who died

45:13

of AIDS and who spent

45:15

the last years of his life promoting

45:18

homosexuality. I mean it's entirely a myth

45:20

that it is the two It

45:22

wasn't in terms of Cincinnati it was. That

45:25

was neither here nor it's totally irrelevant. I

45:27

mean if he'd have been a heterosexual

45:31

and not died of AIDS we'd have felt

45:33

the exact same way. It

45:35

was out of Montilob's hands anyway now that the

45:37

trial was underway. It was up

45:39

to the prosecutors to make their case against the

45:41

museum. The Contemporary Art Center could

45:44

face thousands of dollars in fines and

45:46

there was a real danger that Dennis

45:49

Berry could spend a year in prison

45:51

for I thought very much it could

45:53

be real. I mean there were all

45:55

these things at work that were not

45:57

in our favor. even

46:00

before the testimony started. The

46:02

judge ruled that the jury would see only a

46:04

small part of the perfect moment show. Jurors

46:07

were allowed to judge only seven of the 175 photos. So

46:11

their view of the exhibit wouldn't include

46:13

Mapplethorpe's photographs of flowers. They

46:16

would see only two naked children and

46:18

five images of sadomasochism. Then

46:21

there was the jury itself. The CAC

46:23

was hoping for a bunch of sophisticated

46:25

art lovers. But hardly anyone

46:27

in the jury pool had ever been

46:29

to a museum outside of a school

46:31

field trip. So little by little, things

46:34

looked rather stacked against

46:37

us. And this is not

46:39

going to go our way. Look

46:41

at those and pass them around. There'll

46:44

be no comments. While

46:46

you look at those photographs, pass

46:48

them right down the line. The

46:50

prosecutor's strategy was to let the

46:52

photographs speak for themselves. To

46:54

shock the jury into a guilty verdict. This

46:56

is not art. Those five pictures are not

46:58

art. Those are depictions,

47:01

graphic depictions of sexual

47:03

activity. The

47:05

prosecution called only a single expert

47:07

witness. She said that

47:09

from a composition standpoint, the picture

47:11

of Jesse McBride had all the

47:13

hallmarks of child pornography. That

47:16

these lines, these geometric moments,

47:18

the way he had it lined up,

47:20

only thing you could look at was

47:22

their genital. I don't get

47:24

it. Jesse's mom testified

47:26

in a deposition. She said

47:28

the photo wasn't sexual at all, but

47:30

it was taken with her consent and that she

47:33

was happy that it was in the show. The

47:35

museum side had one main argument

47:38

that according to the Supreme Court,

47:40

something cannot be obscene if it

47:43

has artistic value. The

47:45

subject matter has nothing to do

47:47

with it. And so you

47:49

shouldn't even consider that it's the quality.

47:52

This is H. Lewis Serkin. He represented

47:54

Dennis Berry. So it was

47:56

his task to convince the jury that these

47:58

images of urine... and anal

48:01

penetration were in fact art.

48:04

Art is not just to make you feel good,

48:06

art isn't to just be pretty. He

48:08

brought out experts who spoke about the

48:10

formal qualities of Maplethorpe's images and the

48:12

beauty of their composition. That's an

48:15

extremely symmetrical image. The forearm

48:17

is in the very center of the picture, which

48:19

is very characteristic of his flowers, which

48:21

often occupy the... It was all aesthetic.

48:25

Nobody's going to care about aesthetics. Cincinnati

48:27

art critic Owen Finson was also

48:29

called to testify. The prosecutor showed

48:31

him the photo of Maplethorpe with a bullwhip

48:34

up his anus. They wanted to know

48:36

how the artist could have possibly taken a photo

48:38

of himself in that position. Owen

48:40

explained that a camera could be set on a

48:42

timer. And they said, well, how long

48:44

is that time? I said, well, it's usually about 10 seconds.

48:47

Well, how long does it take to

48:50

insert the handle of a bullwhip

48:52

up to your rectum? I looked

48:54

at the judge and I said, do I have to answer that? Owen

48:57

told them he had no idea. Today,

49:00

after having had 10 colonoscopies, I

49:02

could tell you exactly how. So

49:09

then they showed me one picture, close

49:11

up of a man's rear end, and

49:14

a man with his arm up his

49:16

rectum. And they said, do

49:18

you call that art? I

49:21

said, well, if you go to a restaurant and you have a

49:23

meal you don't like, you don't say, that's

49:26

not food. You

49:28

could say it's awful art, but

49:30

it's art. The

49:33

prosecution also questioned him about the review he'd

49:35

written, where he'd said that

49:37

Maplethorpe's images of naked children were harmless.

49:40

I said, if you look at a picture and

49:43

you feel something is wrong with it, maybe you should

49:45

look at your own heart and not at

49:47

what is on the wall. Now

50:00

it was up to the eight jurors. The

50:02

judge instructs the jury and then

50:05

the jury goes into deliberation.

50:08

And they said, well, they won't come back until Monday.

50:10

So we went back to the office just

50:13

kind of sitting around. Then we got

50:15

a phone call saying the jurors are coming back in.

50:17

And when we heard they're calling us back in, they're

50:20

calling us back in, we were

50:22

shocked. They were only out for

50:24

two hours. We never would have

50:26

predicted this jury would just be out as

50:28

short a time as they were. And

50:31

that's when the heart really starts

50:33

going. I mean, the rule of thumb

50:35

is if they come back real quick, you're in deep

50:38

shit. So we

50:40

were all very concerned. So we

50:42

literally ran back, ran. The

50:44

staff couldn't even get a seat inside

50:46

the actual courtroom. The rest

50:48

of us watched it on closed circuit

50:50

television. We seated at the table. When

50:54

they came out of me, Dennis is

50:56

paler than normal. I was

50:58

scared. You

51:00

know, they read the verdict. We, the

51:02

jury in this case, being duly impeneled

51:04

and sworn, defined the defendant not guilty

51:06

of panering on somebody. Everything

51:11

was not guilty, not guilty, not guilty.

51:15

As soon as they said, I mean, it was

51:18

ecstatic. We were so

51:20

relieved and so happy. It's a great

51:22

day for America. We

51:25

did something very important in the city. We stood

51:27

up for the First Amendment. Those eight

51:29

jurors knew what it was all about. One

51:32

juror told a reporter, we thought

51:34

the pictures were lewd, grotesque, disgusting.

51:37

But like the defense said, art doesn't

51:39

have to be beautiful or pretty. I

51:42

remember walking back, the Reds were

51:44

playing in the playoffs, the baseball

51:47

team. And they

51:49

announced the verdict on

51:51

the loudspeaker. Churs went

51:53

up in Red Stadium. We

51:55

went back to the Contemporary Art Center. We opened

51:57

up bottles of champagne. It was a lot of

51:59

fun. I remember getting very drunk that night.

52:02

It was quite a moment. And

52:07

so what was your immediate reaction when you heard

52:09

the verdict? A disappointment. But

52:11

it wasn't a surprise. Those prosecutors didn't go

52:14

at it with any kind of zeal. Just

52:16

like, eh, robotic, check the list,

52:19

just go through the motions. So

52:21

we lost the case. I

52:24

felt like we won the war. In

52:27

1990, Monty Lobb told reporters that this wasn't the

52:29

end of the story. But

52:31

the trial itself would have a chilling effect.

52:34

The next time someone wants to come into

52:36

Cincinnati with something like this or

52:38

even worse, I have a feeling they'll think

52:40

twice about it. You haven't had

52:42

a maplethorpe since, have we? The

52:45

cowering of other institutions were part of

52:48

what they wanted. Dennis

52:50

Berry says that Monty is right, that

52:52

the winning verdict was in many ways a hollow

52:54

victory. Institutions

52:57

definitely self-censored for the next ten years.

53:01

No one wanted to be the Contemporary Art Center.

53:03

No one certainly wanted to be Dennis Berry. Places

53:06

were not going to take risks,

53:08

and indeed they didn't. In

53:16

2003, the Contemporary Art Center

53:18

moved to a new seven-story building

53:20

in downtown Cincinnati. On

53:23

the 25th anniversary of the Perfect Moments

53:25

show, the CAC opened an exhibition called

53:27

After the Moment, commissioning artists

53:29

to reflect on Robert Maplethorpe's legacy.

53:33

Since 1990, Maplethorpe's stature

53:36

in the art world has continued

53:38

to grow. His work is still debated,

53:40

but it's his treatment of race, not sexuality,

53:42

that often comes under criticism. As

53:45

a white man, Maplethorpe focused on

53:47

photographing black men in his nude

53:49

portraiture, and he's been accused of

53:51

objectifying them and fetishizing their bodies.

53:55

As for his S&M photos, now, more than

53:57

40 years after he took them, they remained

53:59

to be seen. challenging, but

54:01

they're no longer challenged. When

54:03

a massive retrospective of his work

54:05

opened in Los Angeles in 2016,

54:07

the X portfolio was displayed without

54:09

fear and without incident. And

54:12

the things that I found most moving

54:14

were like the little polaroids of like

54:16

the sink with dishes in it. Jesse

54:19

McBride lives in LA and got to

54:21

see the exhibition. It brings

54:23

back memories of downtown

54:25

New York in that sort of innocence

54:29

of the time. When Jesse

54:31

went to see that Maple Thorpe retrospective, there

54:34

was one image he didn't find on the walls.

54:37

The photograph of him as a five-year-old naked

54:39

on a chair. Galleries rarely

54:41

put that photo on display today. Some

54:43

museums have even removed it from their

54:46

websites. Because our

54:48

sensitivities around children and

54:50

our awareness of how their images can be

54:52

exploited, those are more heightened today than

54:54

in 1990. The

54:56

Cincinnati jury was convinced that Jesse's mom

54:59

had given her consent. But

55:01

as a five-year-old, Jesse himself couldn't consent

55:03

to having his naked image live on

55:05

forever. We are lucky that

55:08

I get to say I'm okay with it.

55:10

It is a totally different proposition in this day and age.

55:13

Now would it be okay for Robert to

55:15

take that photograph? I still think

55:17

it would be okay for Robert to take that photograph. I'm

55:20

actually thinking about my own children. My wife and I loved

55:24

our kids to run around naked. It was

55:26

so cute. You have this kind of feeling when you

55:28

have children of

55:30

like you just want to eat them and cuddle

55:33

them. It's a very

55:35

sweet moment of innocence that we recognize

55:37

won't be there forever. I

55:40

think the desire to capture that is sort of

55:43

understandable. If anything,

55:46

it just sort of makes

55:48

me feel better about the photograph. Evan

56:00

Chang is a one-year senior producer. Next

56:04

time, on the season finale of One Year

56:06

1990, when

56:08

a dentist in Florida reportedly transmits HIV to

56:10

a group of his patients, it

56:13

kicks off an enormous national controversy.

56:16

Do not allow your case to be used as a means

56:18

to draw attention away from the real threat that

56:20

we, as individuals and as

56:22

a nation, face from AIDS.

56:36

If you want to hear all of our

56:38

One Year episodes without any ads, you should

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subscribe to SlatePlus. As

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56:48

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56:52

how we put together our 1990 stories. If

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57:01

to slate.com/oneyearplus. Again, that's

57:03

slate.com/oneyearplus. This

57:06

episode of One Year was written by Evan Chang.

57:09

It was produced by Kelly Jones and

57:12

Evan Chang, with additional production by Olivia

57:14

Briley. It was edited

57:16

by me, Josh Levine, One Year's

57:18

editorial director, with Joel Meyer and

57:20

Derek Zhang, Slate's executive producer of

57:22

narrative podcasts. Our senior

57:25

technical director is Merritt Jacobs. Holly Allen

57:27

created the artwork for this season. You

57:30

can send us feedback and ideas and memories from

57:32

1990 at oneyearatslate.com. You

57:35

can call us on the One Year hotline at 203-343-0777. We'd

57:42

love to hear from you. To

57:44

visit a reaction to the Perfect Moment

57:46

show, we're filmed by Bart Everson and

57:48

Michael Northam. Special thanks to

57:50

Shawnee Turner and Kate Elliott at the Contemporary

57:52

Arts Center, Carolyn Krause,

57:54

Christina Cotterucci, Madeline Ducharm, Sophie

57:57

Summergrass, Susan Matthews, Katie

58:00

Rayford, Ben Richmond, Caitlin Schneider,

58:02

Theo Levitt, Seth Brown, Rachel

58:05

Strong, and Alicia Montgomery, plate's

58:07

VP of Audio. Thanks

58:11

for listening. We'll be back next week

58:13

with the Seasons 1 Alex in one year, 1990.

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