Artistic Survival

“Lewd, immoral, obscene . . . the lowest expression of pure filth.” The above statement was made not made about a Robert Mapplethorpe or Andres Serrano exhibition in 1990 but rather in 1939 concerning Thomas Hart Benton’s painting “Susanna and the Elders.” (The current Los Angeles County Museum show of Benton works was reviewed by William Wilson April 29.)

It has been interesting to re-read quotes from Benton and Mapplethorpe, very different artists from very different eras. It would appear both were concerned with (and condemned for) presenting images that existed in America at the time.

Would Thomas Hart Benton have had trouble getting National Endowment for the Arts support for an exhibit in 1939? One knows that “Susanna and the Elders,” or for that matter, 1939’s “Persephone” (also a nude), would probably still raise eyebrows in Cincinnati in 1990!

The Bentons of yesteryear and the Mapplethorpes of today will survive their eras’ condemnation to enlighten our descendants; with or without a public’s “Cincinnati mentality” . . . and with or without government funding!

CHARLES BERLINER

Santa Monica

Berliner’s Cincinnati references concern the April 7 indictment of the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Museum and its director, Dennis Barrie, on obscenity charges in connection with a Mapplethorpe exhibition held at the museum.