Here is a look back at twenty years ago, when the culture wars were fun and scary! (And somewhat less abortion-doctor-shootingey.) Let's ignore the idiotic use of "Perfect Storm" in this otherwise interesting recounting in Time of the NEA v. Robert Mapplethorpe to-do.

Although the Corcoran had gotten nothing from the NEA to subsidize its presentation of the Mapplethorpes, it received around $300,000 a year in federal funding. Concerned that a fight over the exhibit would just make things worse for the NEA – and that her museum could get caught up in the mess – the Corcoran's director, Christina Orr-Cahall, announced on June 12 that she was canceling the show. "We really felt this exhibit was at the wrong place at the wrong time," she said. "We could not and would not allow ourselves to be drawn into the [NEA funding] debate." Now it was the turn of the art world to be outraged. Important Corcoran staffers resigned in protest. A group of angry Washington, D.C., artists projected pictures by Mapplethorpe onto the exterior of the museum. In the months that followed, Corcoran membership dropped by 10%, and prominent artists including Ross Bleckner, Annette Lemieux and David Salle forbade the museum to exhibit their work.

Where are they now? 1. Robert Mapplethorpe is still dead. 2. Christina Orr-Cahall, who regretted her bad decision shortly thereafter, recently resigned as the director of the Norton, in Palm Beach, where she worked for the last 19 years! She is going to head up the "Experience Music Project|Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle," which is a TERRIBLE name for an institution, but comes with a very big paycheck.