lone’s notorious elbows. Malone’s willingness to im-
prove was also responsible for his longevity: Over the
course of his tenure, he sharpened his passing ability
as well as his free throwing and perimeter shooting.
Impact In the 1990’s, Malone won two Olympic
gold medals—one with the 1992 “Dream Team.” His
career statistics rival Abdul-Jabbar’s, and though he
retired without an NBA championship, he was a wor-
thy adversary for Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, and
other dominant players of the decade. Malone’s suc-
cess was heightened by the fact that he played for a
small-market franchise. His on-court demeanor and
his conspicuous musculature are indelible images of
the NBA in the 1990’s.
Further Reading
Hareas, John.NBA’s Greatest. New York: Dorling
Kindersley, 2003.
Kalb, Elliott.Who’s Better, Who’s Best in Basketball? Mr.
Stats Sets the Record Straight on the Top Fifty NBA
Players of All Time. Chicago: Contemporary Books,
2004.
Latimer, Clay.Special Deliver y: The Amazing Basketball
Career of Karl Malone. Lenexa, Kans.: Addax, 1999.
Lewis, Michael C.To the Brink: Stockton, Malone, and
the Utah Jazz’s Climb to the Edge of Glor y. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1998.
Christopher Rager
See also African Americans; Barkley, Charles; Bas-
ketball; Dream Team; Johnson, Magic; Jordan, Mi-
chael; Olympic Games of 1992; Olympic Games of
1996; O’Neal, Shaquille; Sports.
Mapplethorpe obscenity trial
The Event A highly publicized trial over the
display of allegedly obscene art
Date September 24-October 5, 1990
Place Cincinnati, Ohio
The acquittal of the Cincinnati Contemporar y Arts Center
and its director Dennis Barrie on charges of pandering ob-
scenity was a reaffirmation of freedom of speech protection,
particularly with regard to homoerotic art, and set off a na-
tional controversy about the public funding of artworks.
In 1990, the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center
(CAC) exhibited popular American photographer
Robert Mapplethorpe’s (1946-1989) highly erotic
The Perfect Momentto great public outrage, due in
part to the openly homosexual nature of much of
Mapplethorpe’s work. The display resulted in the
unsuccessful prosecution of director Dennis Barrie
on charges of pandering obscenity. Mapplethorpe,
who was highly regarded for his large-scale, black-
and-white portraits of celebrities and photos of flow-
ers and nudes, photographed the human body in a
manner that combined formal beauty and sexuality
and included in his work homoerotic imagery and
sadomasochistic acts. He was best known for his 1978
sexually explicit Portfolio X series, which resulted in
national outrage because it was displayed at publicly
funded exhibitions.
It should be remembered that in the early 1990’s,
the pendulum was swinging toward a more politi-
cally and socially conservative America. In 1990, the
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) had one of
its highest budgets ever, $170 million, and Republi-
cans made plans to eliminate the agency entirely.
The opposition of the American Family Association
and other religious organizations to Mapplethorpe’s
work led to a direct attack on the NEA, which funded
the Mapplethorpe exhibit. Also, since the exhibit be-
gan its national tour almost a year before it reached
Cincinnati, those in that city who objected to the ex-
hibition had plenty of time to prepare an attempt to
close the exhibit under Ohio’s obscenity statute,
which made it illegal to display obscene material.The Trial A watchdog group, Citizens for Commu-
nity Values, organized a protest against Mapple-
thorpe’s exhibit. Hours after the opening on April 7,
1990, the CAC and Barrie were indicted by the Ham-
ilton County Grand Jury for criminal violations of
the Ohio obscenity statute for pandering obscenity
and illegally displaying photographs of nude chil-
dren. The trial began on September 24, with a jury
made up of four men and four women and Judge F.
David J. Albanese presiding. The lawyers for the
CAC and Barrie were Marc D. Mezibov and H. Louis
Sirkin; the prosecutors were Richard A. Castellini,
Frank H. Prouty, Jr., and Melanie J. Reising.
At issue were 7 of 175 photographs, also referred
to as the “Dirty Pictures” (and the name of the 2000
film about the trial), which depict children with ex-
posed genitals and men in sadomasochistic poses.
The cross-examination of witnesses by the prosecu-
tion, led by Prouty, concluded that what some peo-550 Mapplethorpe obscenity trial The Nineties in America