Airport Arts Panel to Rule on Poster Flap : Public art: Advisory commission will decide whether an abstracted male torso with an Icarus theme is appropriate to commemorate the opening of John Wayne’s new terminal.

Officials overseeing an art program at John Wayne Airport will hold an “emergency meeting” today to decide whether to print a poster commemorating the opening of the facility’s new terminal. A printer who volunteered to produce the poster for free has objected to nudity in the artwork.

Bob Cashman, owner of Hallmark Litho Inc. in Anaheim and one of five airport commissioners, said he recently received a photograph of the poster but did not reproduce it because he found it “not appropriate” for the terminal’s Sept. 7 and 8 inauguration ceremonies. The poster image is an abstracted nude male torso with an Icarus theme, based on a painting by Jim Morphesis.

“It is an excellent painting, but I don’t think it quite fits with the theme of the opening of the terminal. . . . It has no airplanes,” Cashman said.

Cashman said the nudity bothered him because the poster might “become controversial” and distract from the focus of the occasion: the opening of the new terminal. (No genitalia are pictured, according to Morphesis, but Cashman said that’s “all in the eye of the beholder.”)

Harvey Stearn, chairman of the five-member advisory airport arts commission, said that the decision to print the poster is the commission’s, not Cashman’s, and that the decision-making process was disrupted when the poster image was sent to Cashman before all art commissioners had seen and approved it.

“This whole thing went out of sequence--it didn’t follow the procedure the commission insisted on,” Stearn said. “I don’t think it was anything but people trying to meet deadlines. But in no way, shape or form will the commission OK production” of the poster until the commission approves the original image.

Stearn said the commission will determine today whether the image meets criteria set for the poster--above all, that it “symbolize flight transportation” and that it appeal to a broad cross-section of the public.

“If it doesn’t, we won’t print it; if it does, we’ll see what arrangements we can make to have it printed,” he said.

Courtney Wiercioch, chief of special projects for the airport, who is coordinating the poster project, admitted that inexperience with art projects led to the mix-up.

“This is brand new to the airport,” she said, adding that should Cashman renege on his offer, the commission would have to appropriate money to print the poster.

Cashman said he might still do the job if the commission approves the artwork, but he also said the posters could not be produced in time for the opening ceremonies. The airport arts program, approved by the Orange County Board of Supervisors in January on a trial basis through June, is supported with airport enterprise money generated through fees charged airlines and other airport users.

Morphesis said he is annoyed by the situation and suggested that perhaps Cashman should have been involved in the poster’s image selection.

“The person paying always has the final say,” he said from his New York studio.

Morphesis was one of 10 artists recommended to design the poster by the Laguna Art Museum. The number of posters to be produced had been discussed as ranging from 500 to 10,000, Wiercioch said.

The art program’s first exhibit--featuring county artists and a transportation and urban landscape theme--is planned for the terminal opening.

Regardless of what happens with the poster, Morphesis’ painting will be bought by the arts commission and will probably be exhibited at the airport in the future, Stearn said.