s most recent show, Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, was also his most controversial. Organized in 1988 by the University of Pennsylvania's Institute of Contemporary Art, and paid for in part by a $34,500 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the exhibit included 175 pieces. Two showed children with exposed genitals, one showed a man urinating into another man's mouth, and four showed anal and penile penetration by objects. On June 12, 1989, the Cocoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. cancelled the exhibit to avoid political fallout from Congress.
When the show opened in Cincinnati at the Contemporary Arts Center on April 7, 1990, the gallery and director were charged with obscenity and illegal use of a minor. The show continued and, as in other cities, set attendance records and increased gallery membership. The trial, which lasted two weeks in September and October, represented the first time an American art gallery had faced obscenity charges. The judge allowed only the seven above described photographs admitted as evidence, but the jury required only two hours to acquit. When the exhibit reached Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art, the last stop on its tour, more than 100,000 people saw it; only 50,000 had been there in all of 1989.
Mapplethorpe was also known for his photographic work in advertising; an example is a three-page study of his favorite subject--human bodies--for the advertising of skin products in Rolling Stone magazine. However, whereas most photographers of magazine ads are anonymous, Mapplethorpe's byline appears in stylized lettering across the page--an indication of his prestige.
Robert Mapplethorpe also published two books of photographs, one in 1983, titled Robert Mapplethorpe 1970-1983, and another, titled Robert Mapplethorpe: Certain People, published in 1985. The latter contains an introduction by Susan Sontag, also a photographic subject in the book...