ART REVIEW : Serrano’s Photographs Lack Punch : Exhibit: Though a reproduction of one of his works was removed from the poster advertising, it’s hard to see what the phallic fuss is about.

Last summer, when Sen. Jesse Helms was on the warpath against federal funding for controversial art exhibits, the lawmaker thundered from the Capitol that male genitalia “will not be exposed at the taxpayers’ expense!”

In that instance, the National Endowment for the Arts came under fire for underwriting exhibits that included a photo by Andres Serrano of a crucifix submerged in urine and homoerotic photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe.

A couple of weeks ago, another Serrano and another set of photographs became the focus of a halfhearted attempt at censorship at Cypress College. A reproduction of one of Rafael Serrano’s photographs was removed from a poster advertising the college’s exhibit, “Frailty of Power: Three Views,” because of fears of confronting the public’s distaste for male nudity.

But the work by Rafael Serrano (no relation to Andres) remains at the gallery through Nov. 16, along with Charlene Knowlton’s mixed-media photographs--which involve male and female nudity--and photographs by Sheila Pinkel.

As it happens, the two women’s photographs actually pack more of a punch than Serrano’s. In fact, it’s hard to see what the phallic fuss at Cypress College is all about.

Serrano’s photos of eccentric, barren landscape tableaux are created with such odds and ends as toy airplanes and ships, tree branches, furniture--and carved phallic symbols, which can be found lying about or serving as architectural columns. Garishly lighted to create the effect of orange sunsets or pale dawn skies, the pieces are meditations on the destructive power of militarism, portrayed as a specifically male phenomenon.

In “Panorama/night” and “Panorama/day,” the curving, red-veined “columns” that balance a splintered piece of wood with nails punched through it are unmistakably stylized renderings of the male organ. Displayed in this serpentine fashion, divorced from its bodily context, it seems as unlikely to offend delicate sensibilities as, say, a goosenecked lamp.

More important, however, the image doesn’t come across as an especially powerful anti-militaristic statement. Maybe the point is that the penises are supposed to look silly--that there is no real manliness in violent activity. But the only signs of “violence” here are nails poking through hacked-up wood--not exactly a riveting symbol in this age of overkill.

Serrano creates a clearerimage in “Rio de Sangre,” with a red sea, a beached ship and an object that looks like a broken phallus lying on the river bank. A trinity of symbols of slaughter, defeat and maleness work in close conspiracy. Again, the mighty penis is humbled--though, again, in a way that has nothing to do with the erotic lure that the Mrs. Grundys of the world are so anxious to protect us against.

Pinkel’s “Goethe Garden No. 4” is a quietly provocative installation--provocative in terms of its ideas, that is, not because of anything to do with sexual imagery. The viewer sees a row of silver-painted feathers and dried branches lined up against the wall. On the floor, letters spell out a quote from the German 19th-Century poet: “Everything that lives strives for color.”

Looking through a device set up several feet from the lineup of natural imagery, the viewer sees it in bright blue and yellow. Although one could wish for a more lifelike color transformation, the switch from the “dead” quality of silver to color gives the ecological message a startling immediacy.

Other works by Pinkel are photo-Xeroxes that seek to engage the mind in socially activist lines of thought. A fanciful untitled work shows the natural world as it might appear from a vantage point under the earth: a medley of sea horses, dried grasses, bugs’ undersides and human feet.

In “Realize,” the huge image of the face of an American Indian with closed (blind?) eyes is partitioned by crisp grid marks--a frequent device of Pinkel’s, which keeps the viewer from being lulled into complacency by the “fictional” world of art. Underneath the image are the words “Real Eyes,” “Realize” and “Real Lies,” suggesting that the truth of common “knowledge” about the American Indian experience is deeply suspect.

Using paint and wax, Knowlton daubs, feathers and masks huge photographs of nudes with the regalia of tribal warriors. Attached pieces of wood or copper also carry painted designs suggestive of magic and ritual. Part artifacts, part recording documents, these works have a satisfyingly dense, atmospheric presence.

In Knowlton’s “You Don’t Need a Weatherman,” the dangling arm of a (dead?) masked figure forms the lower angle of a kite-shaped photograph with a “tail” made of bundled wires that pull apart into a fuzz of broken connections. The title phrase recalls Bob Dylan’s political observation (apropos of members of a radical group of the ‘60s), “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” and the piece seems to be an elegy for the passing of Stone Age cultures and the severing of ties between elemental values and contemporary society.

“Frailty of Power: Three Views” remains through Friday at Cypress College, 9200 Valley View St., Cypress. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission is free. Information: (714) 826-4511 or 826-2220.