Pictures on Newscast Fuel Fight : Television: FCC takes action after a complaint by the American Family Assn. Sexually explicit photos are part of a Mapplethorpe show.

A collection of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs--already a lightning rod for controversy in four cities--has acquired a new dimension with disclosure that the Federal Communications Commission is reviewing a complaint against a Boston public-television station for airing several sexually explicit Mapplethorpe images.

The FCC said that it initiated an inquiry Tuesday into the broadcast of the Mapplethorpe images by WGBH-TV in Boston as a result of a complaint by the American Family Assn., a Tupelo, Miss., Christian organization led by the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon.

The complaint accuses the broadcast of being both obscene and indecent. Existing U.S. Supreme Court precedents have consistently held that obscenity is not protected under the First Amendment. Indecent material, although constitutionally protected, can be curtailed to prevent minors from exposure, the court has ruled.

Eric Brass, WGBH’s corporate counsel, denied Wildmon’s allegations, saying that the broadcast was “not legally obscene, nor would I think there’s any reason to believe it would be harmful.”

The Wildmon organization touched off an ongoing controversy over the National Endowment for the Arts in April of last year when it complained about federal support for an exhibit that included an image of a crucifix immersed in urine by New York photographer Andres Serrano.

The FCC said that Wildmon’s complaint, dated Aug. 7, was received at commission offices on Monday. The agency said it began processing the case Tuesday morning.

The pictures broadcast by WGBH on its 10 p.m. newscast July 31 are part of “The Perfect Moment,” a Mapplethorpe show that had already roused controversy in Washington, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and in Boston when fundamentalists and other political conservatives attempted to have law enforcement officials prosecute the gallery showing it on smut charges.

Wildmon’s three-page letter to the FCC said that “seven of the photographs that were the subject of the broadcast have been alleged to be obscene and are currently the subject of a criminal indictment in Cincinnati.” He apparently referred to a pending state court prosecution in Ohio in which the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center and its director face obscenity and child pornography charges in connection with a display of “The Perfect Moment” earlier this year. The judge in the Cincinnati case has set an Aug. 24 hearing to set a trial date.

Wildmon specifically described two allegedly homoerotic photographs in his letter, contending that “the photographs were not held up for their artistic merit, but rather for their individual and collective ability to ‘shock’ the viewer.”

According to Roger Holberg, supervisory attorney for the FCC’s mass media bureau, the Wildmon complaint was judged appropriate for FCC action, unlike two previous letters it received criticizing the WGBH broadcast. The decision to initiate the review was taken because, he said, Wildmon included all the necessary components to process a complaint--including a videotape of the broadcast.

The WGBH program devoted most of its coverage that night to controversial art, according to Alan Foster, executive producer of news at WGBH, because of a then-current Mapplethorpe exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

Foster denied Wildmon’s accusations of obscenity and sensationalism, saying that the First Amendment and a previous FCC policy that considered the period between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. to be suitable for indecent material both apply to the Mapplethorpe broadcast.

“We gave it a mature treatment, it was intelligent. . . . It did more than titilate,” Foster said. “The question I feel is fundamental is not why we did air it, but why others did not. The media’s covering us as if we did something wrong, but they haven’t been able to treat (the Mapplethorpe photos) with intelligence. . . . We feel strongly that knowledge of the photos is what was lacking in public debate.”

Wildmon said in his complaint that WGBH, “knowing the harmful nature of the material, presented several ‘disclaimers’ regarding the airing of the material.” He contended, however, that the warnings were insufficient.

A court ruling is pending on the constitutionality of a 24-hour ban on indecent program material recently promulgated by the FCC. The FCC decision barring indecent programming was cited by Wildmon as a major ground for his complaint.

Wildmon was unavailable Wednesday, but AFA lawyer Peggy Coleman said that the complaint was more motivated by WGBH’s actions than by the fact that Mapplethorpe photos were involved.

“This was not done in respect to the NEA or Mapplethorpe,” Coleman said. “The AFA has participated in regular complaints against obscene broadcasting for the past several years.”