Transcript Mapplethorpe

The Culture Wars
1950s
1950: In Los Angeles, gay rights activist Harry Hay founds America’s first national gay
rights organization, the Mattachine Society.
1950: A Senate report states that homosexuals "constitute security risks" to the nation
because "those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of
normal persons." (More than 4,380 gay men and women have been discharged from the
military and around 500 fired from their jobs with the government.)
1952: The American Psychiatric Association lists homosexuality as a sociopathic
personality disturbance.
1953: President Eisenhower signs an executive order, banning homosexuals from
working for the federal government.
1958: In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court rules in favor of the First Amendment
rights of the magazine "One: The Homosexual Magazine." The suit was filed after the
U.S. Postal Service and FBI declared it obscene material.
1960s
1962: Illinois repeals its sodomy laws, becoming the first U.S. state to decriminalize
homosexuality.
1964: At Independence Hall in Philadelphia, picketers begin staging the first Reminder
Day to call public attention to the lack of civil rights for LGBT people.
1966: At a "sip-in" at a Greenwich Village bar, where the New York Liquor Authority
prohibits serving gay patrons, participants are refused service. After a suit is filed, the
NYC Commission on Human Rights grants homosexuals the right to be served.
After transgender customers become raucous in a 24-hour San Francisco cafeteria,
management calls police. When a police officer manhandles one of the patrons, she
throws coffee in his face and a riot ensues.
1969: Patrons of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village riot when police stage a 1 a.m.
raid. Angry gay youth clash with aggressive police officers in the streets, leading to a
three-day riot during with thousands of protestors but only minimal press coverage.
Nonetheless, the event is credited with launching the modern gay rights movement.
1970s
1970: Christopher St. Liberation Day commemorates the one-year anniversary of the
Stonewall riots\in what will be considered America's first gay pride parad
1973: The American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its list of
mental illnesses.
1974: Kathy Kozachenko becomes the first openly gay American elected to public office
when she wins a seat on the Ann Arbor, Michigan City Council.
1977: Singer Anita Bryant leads a successful campaign with the "Save Our Children"
Crusade to repeal a gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida.
1977: Elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk introduces an
ordinance protecting gays and lesbians from being fired. A year later, former colleague
Dan White assassinates Milk and is convicted of voluntary manslaughter. Outraged by
the leniency of the sentence, 5,000+ protesters ransack San Francisco's City Hall.
1979: An estimated 75,000 people participate in the National March on Washington for
Lesbian and Gay Rights.
1980s
1980: Democrats become the first political party to endorse a homosexual rights platform.
1981: The New York Times prints the first story of a rare pneumonia and skin cancer
found in 41 gay men in New York and California.
1982: Wisconsin becomes the first U.S. state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of
sexual orientation.
1987: AIDS advocacy group ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) forms and
holds demonstrations against pharmaceutical companies profiteering from AIDS-related
drugs and the lack of policies protecting patients from outrageous prescription prices.
Hundreds of thousands of activists take part in the National March on Washington to
demand that President Ronald Reagan address the AIDS crisis. (It until the end of his
presidency that Reagan speaks publicly about the epidemic.)
1988: The World Health Organization organizes the first World AIDS Day to raise
awareness of the spreading pandemic.
1989
• Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art opens an NEA-funded show that includes Piss Christ.
• The Rev. Donald Wildmon attacks Piss Christ. NY Sen. Alphonse D’Amato calls for a review of NEA
procedures, saying the issue is “not a question of free speech" but "of taxpayers' money."
• Rep. Dick Armey and 100 other members of Congress attack NEA support for the Mapplethorpe
retrospective, The Perfect Moment, organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art.
• Christina Orr-Cahill, director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, cancels the exhibition. The night of her
announcement, activists project a selection of Mapplethorpe’s work on the Corcoran façade. The
Washington Project for the Arts mounts The Perfect Moment.
• After failing to pass a a five-year ban on funding for the ICA and the Southeastern Center. Congress
cuts the NEA budget by $45,000—the total that had gone to the two exhibitions.
• Congress bans NEA support for "materials which in the judgment of the NEA may be considered
obscene, including depictions of sadomasochism, homo-eroticism, the sexual exploitation of
children, or of individuals engaged in sex acts which taken as a whole, do not have serious literary,
artistic, political, or scientific value."
• RIT Instructor Patti Ambrogi is accused of child pornography after exhibiting nude photographs of
her twin daughters. No charges are filed.
1990
• U.S. Customs officials confiscate a 30-year-old black-and-white self-portrait of Walter Chappell. The
New Mexico photograph is sitting on the ground, his penis erect, and holding his baby son in his
arms.
• A federal court strikes down the ban as unconstitutionally vague and in violation of the First
Amendment.
• NEA chairman John Frohnmayer denies grants to Karen Finley, Tim Miller, John Fleck, and Holly
Hughes—all of whom had been recommended by the peer review panel. Miller, Fleck and Hughes
deal with gay issues in their work, while Finley is an outspoken feminist.
• The “NEA Four” file suit against Frohnmayer and the NEA.
• In San Francisco, the FBI raids the studio of Jock Sturges and confiscates its contents.
• In Cincinnati, the local sheriff raids the Contemporary Arts Center, then showing the Mapplethorpe
retrospective.
• Indictments are brought against museum director Dennis Barrie and the Arts Center itself on the
charges of pandering obscenity and the use of a minor in nude materials.
• A jury acquits Dennis Barrie and CAC.
1991-1999
• 1993: The NEA settles out of court with the NEA Four and restores the grants.
• 1993: Detroit police raid the home and office of Wayne State Professor Marilyn Zimmerman, on
suspicion that photographs of her three-year-old in the bath are child pornography. No charges are
filed.
• 1993: After being fired from the CAC, Dennis Barrie moves to Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame. (Subsequently he served as curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington and
today is working on the creation of the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law
Enforcement.)
• 1994: Ejlat Feuer is arrested for child endangerment for making nude photographs of his six-year-
old daughter for an art class. New Jersey authorities decide not to bring the case to trial.
• 1994: Arizona police raid an art gallery in Tucson and seize photographs of Robyn Stoutenburg's
four-year-old son.
• 1999: NY Mayor Rudolph Giuliani cuts funding for the Brooklyn Museum unless it cancels a show
that includes a portrait of the Virgin Mary stained with a clump of elephant dung. The US district
court rules the city’s action a violation of the Museum’s rights under the First Amendment and
orders Giuliani to restore the subsidy.
2010
• Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in
American Art opens at the National
Portrait Gallery in October.
• In November, the Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution removed an
edited version of footage used in
David Woynarwicz’s film A Fire in My
Belly after complaints from the
Catholic League, Minority Leader
John Boehner and Representative
Eric Cantor, and under threat of
reduced federal funding.
The Perfect Moment
Canova: Three Graces (1814-17); Mapplethorpe: Ken, Lydia and Tyler (1985)
The Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus
Mapplethorpe: Jim and Tom, Sausalito, 1977
Peter Paul Rubens: Roman Charity
Mapplethorpe: Annamirl, 1984
Caravaggio: Crucifixion of St. Peter (left)
The Martyrdom of St. Matthew (right)
Mapplethorpe: Jim, Sausalito, 1977
Bernini: The Ecstasy of St. Theresa
Caravaggio: Doubting Thomas
Mapplethorpe: Lou
Crucifixion of St. Peter
Elliot and Dominick, 1979 (right)
Caravaggio: Amor Vincit Omnia (left)
Mapplethorpe: Jessie McBride, 1976 (right)
Mapplethorpe: Lisa Lyons, 1988 (left)
Botticelli: The Birth of Venus, c1485-86 (right)
The Black Book
The Other Guy
Andres Serrano: Heaven and Hell, 1984
Andres Serrano: Bloodstream, 1987 (left)
Untitled VII (Ejaculate in trajectory), 1989 (right)
Andres Serrano: Piss Christ, 1987
Andres Serrano: The Church (Father Frank, Rome), 1991 (left)
The Church (Soeur Yvette II), 1991 (right)
Andres Serrano:
Klansman (Grand Titan
of the Invisible Empire
IV)
Andres Serrano: Klansman (Knight Hawk of Georgia of The Invisible Empire I),1990 (left)
PierodellaFrancesca: SigismondoMalatesta, 1451 (right)
Andres Serrano: Nomads (Sir Leonard), 1990 (left)
Edward Curtis: Self-Portrait, 1899 (right)
Hans Holbein the Younger: The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, 1521
Andres Serrano: The Morgue (Homicide Stabbing), 1992