Art on Trial: A CAP Conversation To Take Place on July 26 at the Midtown Collaboration Center

A Robert Mapplethorpe self-portrait. Credit: Courtesy of Cleveland Arts Prize

The Cleveland Arts Prize (CAP) has just announced the details of an upcoming
CAP Conversation. Dubbed “Art on Trial: Dennis Barrie, Barbara Tannenbaum, and the Legacy of the Mapplethorpe Controversy,” the talk will take place at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 26,at the Midtown Collaboration Center.

Cultural historian Dennis Barrie, the former director of Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center who’s also worked locally with the Rock Hall and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, will revisit his role in the landmark 1990 Mapplethorpe obscenity trial. The Contemporary Arts Center famously faced criminal charges for exhibiting
Mapplethorpe’s artwork.

Barrie’s account will offer “a rare, behind-the-scenes look” into a moment
that shook the art world and set lasting precedents for freedom of expression.

“This event is part of a series of fundraisers,” says Cleveland Arts Prize Executive Director Effie Nunes via phone. “What we’ve been trying to do is tie these events into our mission, which is to honor and support artistic excellence. We came up with these CAP Conversations. This is our second one, and we are working on more for the future. We want to incite dialog about the arts and deepen public awareness about our winners. So there is always a tie-in with a winner or multiple winners.”

A remarkably talented photographer, Mapplethorpe photographed nudes and sexual acts and documented friends in the S&M scene. “The photographs placed him at the center of debates around self expression and censorship in the arts,” The New York Times wrote at the time he emerged as a major artist. “The photographs were shocking for their content but remarkable in their technical mastery.”

Barbara Tannenbaum, Curator of Photography at the Cleveland Museum of Art, will provide “critical curatorial perspective” on how museums today navigate
provocative works, public funding, and institutional responsibility.

“Together, Barrie and Tannenbaum will discuss the legal, social, and artistic implications of the trial and other controversies they’ve encountered, while examining how the arts continue to confront—and transcend—questions of censorship and public discourse,” reads a press release about the event.

The relevance of the subject matter isn’t lost on Nunes.

“Freedom of expression right now could be seen as possibly being under fire, so it’s even more timely than we initially thought it would be,” she says.

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