SHORT TAKES : Mapplethorpe Conflict Rages On

Opponents of a planned exhibition of photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe denounced a group of the pictures Thursday as encouraging child pornography and damaging to community standards.

“I am firmly convinced that this exhibit has no place in Cincinnati. The offensive parts of the exhibition are not art and show bad judgment by those who seek to exhibit them,” Donald Klekamp, a Cincinnati lawyer, said angrily at a news conference.

Klekamp and others at the news conference called on the Contemporary Arts Center to remove sexually graphic pictures from the exhibit, planned for April 6 through May 25.

Nine of the 175 photographs planned in the Arts Center’s exhibition depict homoerotic or sadomasochistic sex acts or include nude children. The museum plans to post a warning sign and won’t admit unaccompanied minors.

Police and the Hamilton County sheriff have said they are considering filing obscenity charges if the museum displays the photographs. The museum filed a lawsuit this week asking for a jury to decide before the show opens whether the pictures are obscene.