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Cincinnati v. Contemporary Arts Center

566 N.E.2d 214 (1990)

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Cincinnati v. Contemporary Arts Center

Ohio Municipal Court
566 N.E.2d 214 (1990)

  • Written by Heather Whittemore, JD

Facts

The Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) (defendant), an art museum in Cincinnati, Ohio, curated an exhibition of photographs taken by Robert Mapplethorpe as a retrospective of his career. The exhibition contained approximately 175 photographs. Five of the photographs in the exhibition contained sadomasochistic imagery. These photographs were displayed in a separate arrangement from the remaining photographs and were not included in the exhibition’s catalog. The city of Cincinnati (plaintiff) charged CAC and its director (defendant) with violating a state law that prohibited any person from displaying or exhibiting obscene materials. In Miller v. California, the United States Supreme Court had provided a three-prong test for determining whether material was obscene, instructing courts to look at the material taken as a whole, considering its content and context. CAC and its director argued that the court should consider the exhibition as a whole in determining whether they had exhibited obscene material, rather than considering each photograph separately. Considering the 175 photographs in the exhibition together, CAC and its director argued that the exhibition was not obscene.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Albanese, J.)

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