Cincinnati Panel Gets Verbal Look at Photos : Obscenity: Defense attorney gauges the reaction of potential jurors to Mapplethorpe’s work.

A defense attorney described Robert Mapplethorpe’s sexually explicit photos in detail to gauge the reactions of prospective jurors at the nation’s first obscenity trial of an art gallery and its director.

The Contemporary Arts Center and director Dennis Barrie are charged with obscenity and displaying nude photos of children at a Mapplethorpe exhibit.

Defense lawyers today rejected a prospective juror as jury selection moved into the third day. Marc Mezibov, the gallery’s lawyer, used a peremptory challenge to remove a retiree, who he said was not adequately familiar with the community’s contemporary social standards.

Eight jurors and two alternates are being sought.

On Tuesday, prosecutors used one of their peremptory challenges to dismiss a prospective juror who viewed the Mapplethorpe photo exhibit.

Seven of the 175 photos from the exhibit are the basis for the criminal charges. One photo shows a man urinating into another man’s mouth. Others show anal penetration with objects and other homosexual or sadomasochistic images.

After describing the seven photographs in detail, lawyer H. Louis Sirkin asked several prospective jurors, “Are you willing to see those photographs before making a decision as to whether any of them is obscene?”

All answered that they were willing.

Sirkin said later that he didn’t describe the photographs for shock value, although he was interested in seeing the potential jurors’ reaction.

He did not say what he believed the reactions were.

“The jury is entitled to know what the photographs show,” Sirkin said. “If they’re going to see them, they have a right to know what’s in them.”