Robert Mapplethorpe

News of a museum's major art acquisition isn't usually accompanied by the question, "Why?" So it's interesting to see it crop up in reports that a huge cache of Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs, plus his archives and youthful mixed-media art, has been jointly acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Trust. The specific gist of the puzzlement seems to be: Why Los Angeles? Mapplethorpe was born in Floral Park, Queens, and spent his entire working life in New York (he died there at 42 in 1989)

News of a museum's major art acquisition isn't usually accompanied by the question, "Why?" So it's interesting to see it crop up in reports that a huge cache of Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs, plus his archives and youthful mixed-media art, has been jointly acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Trust. The specific gist of the puzzlement seems to be: Why Los Angeles? Mapplethorpe was born in Floral Park, Queens, and spent his entire working life in New York (he died there at 42 in 1989)

On a recent afternoon, Patti Smith pushed open the glass doors of the Chelsea Hotel and stepped into her past. When she lived in the fabled hotel in 1969 and '70, she used to sit on a bench in the lobby, a den of Pop art paintings and dusty furniture, and marvel at the artists and eccentrics tramping to their rooms. One day she was holding a stuffed black crow, which she had just bought at the Museum of the American Indian, when Salvador Dali, in a black and scarlet cape, strolled in and placed a slim hand on her head.

Robert Mapplethorpe, one of the most influential and controversial photographers of the 20th century, made his name in New York. Now, with a surprising joint acquisition by the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, his life's work is heading to Los Angeles. The two museums have together acquired some 2,000 of Mapplethorpe's most famous photographs. Included is the estate's last remaining "XYZ Portfolio," a set of images featuring his highly sculptural flowers and his powerfully sculpted male nudes.

On Friday, Oct. 5, an Ohio criminal court jury ended a summerlong bad dream for the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center and its director, Dennis Barrie. But in the weeks since Barrie and the museum were found not guilty on obscenity and child pornography charges that grew out of a show of photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe, Barrie has found the art center may have sustained long-term damage to its finances and reputation.

A judge ruled today that an art gallery and its director must stand trial later this month on obscenity charges for displaying five sexually graphic photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. Dennis Barrie and the Contemporary Arts Center already were scheduled to go on trial Sept. 24, each on one misdemeanor charge of using children in material involving nudity, also works by Mapplethorpe. The obscenity case will be heard the same day.

A federal judge granted an injunction Sunday barring law officers from interfering with an exhibit of photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe. The display had brought about an obscenity indictment against a downtown museum and its director. The Contemporary Arts Center sought the injunction because its officials feared police or sheriff's department officers might remove sexually explicit photographs that a Hamilton County grand jury determined Saturday violated Ohio obscenity laws.

At first glance, Dennis Barrie seems an odd choice to be named director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, a post to which he was appointed last week. He's widely renowned as a curator and historian in the "high art" world of galleries and museums but brings few credentials from the "low art"--i.e., rock 'n' roll--realm.

Patricia Morrisroe's biography of Robert Mapplethorpe is a malicious, unpleasant book in which a collection of perfectly awful people are displayed in all their pettiness, self-importance, blind ambition and wild selfishness. You have to take a walk about once every 15 pages to counteract the feeling of intense sullied claustrophobia that sets in as you follow the repulsive behavior of this crowd.

An expert witness delivered the most dramatic and potentially damaging testimony against the defense at the Mapplethorpe obscenity trial Thursday when she compared two of the photographs at issue to child pornography and said none are fit to hang in an art museum. Judith Reisman, a mass media researcher with links to anti-pornography groups, contradicted the testimony of other arts experts who extolled the late Robert Mapplethorpe as one of the most important photographers of his time.

On a recent afternoon, Patti Smith pushed open the glass doors of the Chelsea Hotel and stepped into her past. When she lived in the fabled hotel in 1969 and '70, she used to sit on a bench in the lobby, a den of Pop art paintings and dusty furniture, and marvel at the artists and eccentrics tramping to their rooms. One day she was holding a stuffed black crow, which she had just bought at the Museum of the American Indian, when Salvador Dali, in a black and scarlet cape, strolled in and placed a slim hand on her head.

The biggest bid to make great art-viewing happen in Vegas is not staying in Vegas: The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum will close May 11, as the New York-based Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the State Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg, Russia, refocus their partnership on a proposed venture in Vilnius, Lithuania. Located off the main lobby of the Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino, the 7,600-square-foot museum opened in October 2001. Exhibitions included Impressionist paintings, ancient Egyptian artifacts, pop art and Robert Mapplethorpe photographs.

Japan's Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a collection of erotic photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe does not violate obscenity laws, a decision that should allow the sale of the book for the first time in eight years. The decision overturned a 2003 Tokyo High Court ruling that the book "Mapplethorpe" was indecent, court spokesman Takashi Ando said. It was believed to be the first time the top court has overruled a lower court ruling on obscenity. The court, however, rejected publisher Takashi Asai's demand for government compensation of $20,370, Ando said.

In 1993, Catherine Opie made a brilliant photograph that could be the poster image for the dramatic civil rights issue of gay marriage. A stick-figure drawing, like a child's earnest scrawl, showed two smiling girls holding hands in front of a cheerful house. This sentimental image of innocent love had been carved with a knife blade into the freckled skin of Opie's own back. Its bloody, scarified trail offers eloquent testimony to the complex visceral anguish within familial life.

When artist Cindy Sherman curated a show of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York last year, she created both a portrait of Mapplethorpe and a self-portrait of sorts. "Eye to Eye" included several portraits echoing the work for which Sherman is best known -- film stills in which she portrays invented characters.

Christopher Knight states that James Woods' comments were "chilling" and exhibited "homophobia" when Woods expressed his understandable distaste for an art exhibit featuring a picture of one man urinating into another man's mouth ("Censorship Run Amok in 'Pictures,' " May 27). I know many people including myself who feel exactly the same way that Woods does but I would no more characterize them as homophobic as I would label Knight a responsible art critic. Woods was not advocating censorship in his comments but merely expressing his values, which clearly, and thankfully, are at odds with Knight.

Mapplethorpe Foundation Helps AIDS Research: The estate of photographer-artist Robert Mapplethorpe said Monday it was donating $1.3 million to the hospitals where he was treated for AIDS. The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation announced the grants of $1 million to Beth Israel Medical Center in New York and $300,000 to New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston. The money is for treatment for and research into AIDS. The artist died of the disease a year ago.

Deep-seated hostilities perpetually simmer just below the surface of American life. Ten years ago today they boiled over, erupting into vituperative combat. On June 13, 1989, Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art fired a shot heard 'round the world. The museum canceled an imminent exhibition containing numerous sexually explicit photographs for fear of offending certain neighbors down the street in Congress.

Patricia Morrisroe's biography of Robert Mapplethorpe is a malicious, unpleasant book in which a collection of perfectly awful people are displayed in all their pettiness, self-importance, blind ambition and wild selfishness. You have to take a walk about once every 15 pages to counteract the feeling of intense sullied claustrophobia that sets in as you follow the repulsive behavior of this crowd.