Judge Stays Out of Mapplethorpe Dispute

A judge on Friday refused to get involved in a dispute over an exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe’s sexually graphic photographs, giving prosecutors a free hand to act against the show.

The judge’s decision was issued hours before a scheduled preview of the show for museum members.

After the ruling, prosecutors refused to say whether they would press obscenity charges against the Contemporary Arts Center, where the exhibition was scheduled to open to the public this morning.

“We can do a lot of things. I’m not going to tell you what we’re going to do,” said Hamilton County Prosecutor Arthur Ney Jr.

The center had tried to preempt any charges by going to court for a ruling on whether the show is obscene, but Hamilton County Municipal Judge Edward Donnellon dismissed the lawsuit Friday for lack of legal standing.

Art gallery attorney Marc Mezibov said there was no reason to expect that any of the photographs would be seized or that obscenity charges would be filed.

“The judge’s decision today indicates there is no controversy,” Mezibov said. “There’s no reason to believe any law enforcement agencies are considering action.

“Based on what I heard in court today, there’s apparently no problem with the exhibit. There’s no reason to believe there will be any criminal prosecution,” he said.

But another lawyer representing the arts center said he feared that authorities will move against the exhibit.

“In this county you always live with a certain degree of fear,” said the lawyer, H. Louis Sirkin.

A Hamilton County citizens’ group has dubbed nine of the late artist’s works obscene and demanded that they be banned from the 175-photograph exhibit.

In June, the Mapplethorpe exhibit was canceled at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. The exhibit, which has been shown in Philadelphia, Chicago, Hartford, Conn., Berkeley, Calif., and Boston, includes photographs of homosexual and sadomasochistic sex acts.

The exhibit of the work by Mapplethorpe, who died of AIDS in March, 1989, prompted Congress to limit funding to the arts after Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) declared the photographs obscene.

Several hundred supporters and opponents of the Mapplethorpe exhibit gathered in front of the courthouse Friday afternoon during the hearing. Police kept the two sides separate.

Supporters carried banners that said: “If you give artists freedom of expression, soon every American will want it.” Opponents’ signs read: “We want decency in Cincinnati” and “God is against pornography. So are we.”

The show is scheduled to run through May 26.