Museum Asks Court to Void Obscenity Case

Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Museum and its director asked a court today to dismiss obscenity charges triggered by an exhibit of the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe’s controversial works.

Judge David Albanese of the Hamilton County Municipal Court agreed to consider the request and scheduled a hearing May 22 on the issue.

Lawyers for the museum and its director, Dennis Barrie, asked that the case be thrown out of court during a brief procedural appearance at which no arguments were presented.

They also won a hearing in another court on a request that grand jury testimony used to indict Barrie and the museum April 7 be made public so it could be used for defense purposes if the matter ever comes to trial.

The hearing on that matter will be held May 9 before Judge Gilbert Bettman of the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, the judicial arm to which grand juries report in Cincinnati.

Barrie and his museum were indicted on charges of obscenity and using minors in pornography. Mapplethorpe’s work includes homosexual themes that have embroiled the traveling exhibit in controversy.

The exhibit, which is scheduled to end its run in Cincinnati on May 26, has drawn record crowds to the museum, which has kept its doors open under a federal court order it obtained after city and county officials had indicated that they might seize some of the exhibit.