Judge Instructs Police to Leave Exhibit Alone : Art: Crowds line up for the second day of a showing of photos by the late Robert Mapplethorpe. The museum has been indicted for obscenity.

A federal judge granted an injunction Sunday barring law officers from interfering with an exhibit of photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe. The display had brought about an obscenity indictment against a downtown museum and its director.

The Contemporary Arts Center sought the injunction because its officials feared police or sheriff’s department officers might remove sexually explicit photographs that a Hamilton County grand jury determined Saturday violated Ohio obscenity laws.

After the injunction was granted by U.S. District Judge Carl Rubin at an unusual Sunday morning hearing, the exhibition opened to a large throng for a second day. The atmosphere was decidedly more relaxed than it had been on Saturday when police shut down the exhibit temporarily in mid-afternoon and when the arts center and its director were indicted on obscenity charges.

“The air doesn’t have as much tension in it,” said Robert Allen of Lightborne Communications, the show’s corporate sponsor, as he watched the long line of people that stretched out of the lobby, snaked through the building’s atrium and continued outside around the block.

The show has broken attendance records since its private opening Friday night, when an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 people paid $10 each and stood in line in 40-degree temperatures for hours to view the exhibit. Arts center spokeswoman Amy Bannister said the usually free openings normally draw from 600 to 1,100 people.

Thousands more saw the show over the weekend.

Many came because of the controversy, some because they feared that police would shut the show down for allegedly violating community standards of decency.

“I talked to people yesterday and a lot of them were here for two reasons,” Allen said. “Some came because they wanted to see something happen and a lot of them were here to see the exhibit before, quote, it was closed down.”

Adding to the tension Saturday had been plainclothes police detectives and members of the grand jury mingling with the opening day crowd. After inspecting the photographs, the grand jury returned to the courthouse to indict the arts center and its director, Dennis Barrie, on misdemeanor charges of pandering obscenity and illegally using a minor in nudity oriented material.

Then the police closed the exhibit for about 90 minutes while they videotaped and photographed the 175 works on display for use as evidence in criminal proceedings. Hundreds of arts patrons and protesters chanted and jeered outside in the atrium while this went on.

On Sunday, Judge Rubin ordered the art center to supply the prosecution with copies of all photographs on display. Several of the photographs depict children with their genitals exposed. Others show men performing sadomasochistic acts.

Explicit photographs depicting sadomasochistic sex are being shown in a separate gallery and no one under age 18 is being admitted to the exhibit without a guardian.

Those steps weren’t sufficient for county Prosecutor Arthur Ney, who had urged the center to voluntarily take down seven works that the grand jury deemed obscene and suggested that further law enforcement action might be forthcoming if the center did not remove them.

The injunction prevents that and the exhibit is scheduled to run through May 26 before moving to Boston.

Both sides agreed to the injunction remaining in force pending trial of the issue. Barrie, who is to be arraigned Friday, faces a maximum sentence of one year in jail and a fine of $2,000. The arts center faces a maximum fine of $10,000.

The photographs, which have been exhibited without incident in Chicago, Philadelphia, Berkeley and Hartford, Conn., sparked controversy in Washington last year when Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) attacked some of the photographs as obscene. The uproar caused the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington to cancel a planned showing.