Final answer:
The Cincinnati jury acquitted the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center and its director of obscenity in showing an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe's work because it did not meet the criteria for obscenity as established by the Miller test.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Cincinnati jury acquitted the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center and its director of obscenity in showing an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe's work on the basis that it did not meet the criteria for obscenity as established by the Miller test. The Miller test, established by the Supreme Court in 1973, consists of three parts: (1) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work appeals to the prurient interest, (2) whether the work depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and (3) whether the work lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. In this case, the jury determined that Mapplethorpe's work did not meet these criteria for obscenity.