Keeping Cincinnati Clean

A museum director is tried on obscenity charges

The most famous definition of pornography is still the eyeball test once offered by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: "I know it when I see it." A grand jury in Hamilton County, Ohio, figured they knew what they were seeing in Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center last April. Citing pictures that were part of a retrospective of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's work, they brought criminal charges against the museum and its director, Dennis Barrie, for pandering obscenity.

Barrie's trial, which began last week, is shaping up as a landmark: the first time an American museum director has faced criminal charges because of work...

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