Mapplethorpe Photographs, which included (among other things) sexually explicit images involving gay BDSM, and two photos of children with exposed genitals. This was in the context of the culture wars of the late 1980s, when Sen. Jesse Helms, Rep. Dick Armey, among others, questioned grant funding for individual artists, from the National Endowment for the Arts, for art that they considered "morally reprehensible trash." Not wanting to let an important exhibition fall to the wayside, the underwriters of the show went to the WPA, who presented the controversial show in its own space from July 21 – August 13, 1989. 48,863 visitors, a standing record, attended the exhibition. There was a seminar about the historical impact 20 years later. In the fall of 1989, The Blues Aesthetic exhibition was held. In October through November 1995, it showed a retrospective of the artist Noche Crist, Romanian rhapsodies. In December 1995, Hostile Witness was shown, by the artist, Shailish Thakor. In the summer of 2005 the WPA\C organized one of its largest membership shows ever at the seven spaces that made up the Warehouse Galleries, Theater and Cafe complex on 7th Street, NW in Washington, D.C. Titled and curated by F. Lennox Campello, "Seven", the show included works by Sam Gilliam, Mark Jenkins, Frank Warren, Tim Tate, Chan Chao, and many other well-known DC area member artists. In December 2005, WPA\C mounted PostSecret, a project founded by Frank Warren. In a donated space on M street in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., thousands of postcards that were sent into Warren were placed on display. The exhibition drew in large crowds, many whom waited in line to see the exhibit, and can be credited as the most successful exhibition since the Mapplethorpe show. In 2006, it sponsored Wallsnatchers, an exhibition of graffiti art, at a vacant Staples building in Georgetown. In 2009, major American art collector Mera Rubell of the Rubell Family Collection, selected and curated 36 Washington, D.C., area artists for a WPA exhibition at the American University Museum. In May 2010, WPA collaborated with The Pink Line Project for Cabaret (re)Revolatire. This event, curated by Alberto Gaitán celebrated the historic Cabaret ReVoltaire series that was presented by WPA in 1992. The WPA Biennial exhibition OPTIONS, features under-recognized and emerging artists from the mid-Atlantic region. Past exhibitions and programs include, Wall Snatchers, The Experimental Media Series, Seven, Sculpture Unbound, Anonymous I, Anonymous Returns, Anonymous