Wow, this brings back some old memories! I grew up in Cincinnati, and was in high school when the Contemporary Arts Center/Mapplethorpe controversy was going on. As a closeted (at the time) gay kid, it was not a great thing to live through. We had a family membership to the Contemporary Arts Center, and regularly visited exhibits there, one of my favorite things to do back then. My mom had been an elementary school art teacher so our family regularly visited art museums, but they were also very conservative, and canceled the CAC membership in response to the Mapplethorpe exhibit, along with my dad writing a nasty scathing letter to the director. Sigh. It was an awful time in Cincinnati, and was very isolating for a closeted gay kid in the burbs. I remember my American History teacher taking time out of class to tell us about this "awful" exhibit and how we should be aware of it and those photographs should not be shown etc etc etc. I was terrified of the other kids figuring out I was gay (in hindsight, I'm sure a lot of them knew), and that just compounded the terror.
I often wonder how things are in Cincinnati now. I have not been back there for over twenty years, as obviously I do not feel a great pull to return for a visit. Anyway, thanks for this post, excellent, excellent read!
Wow, this brings back some old memories! I grew up in Cincinnati, and was in high school when the Contemporary Arts Center/Mapplethorpe controversy was going on. As a closeted (at the time) gay kid, it was not a great thing to live through. We had a family membership to the Contemporary Arts Center, and regularly visited exhibits there, one of my favorite things to do back then. My mom had been an elementary school art teacher so our family regularly visited art museums, but they were also very conservative, and canceled the CAC membership in response to the Mapplethorpe exhibit, along with my dad writing a nasty scathing letter to the director. Sigh. It was an awful time in Cincinnati, and was very isolating for a closeted gay kid in the burbs. I remember my American History teacher taking time out of class to tell us about this "awful" exhibit and how we should be aware of it and those photographs should not be shown etc etc etc. I was terrified of the other kids figuring out I was gay (in hindsight, I'm sure a lot of them knew), and that just compounded the terror.
I often wonder how things are in Cincinnati now. I have not been back there for over twenty years, as obviously I do not feel a great pull to return for a visit. Anyway, thanks for this post, excellent, excellent read!
What a beautifully written post.
Not sure why you would think that I believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. About 4years here writing the exact opposite.