Japan: Mapplethorpe uncensored-AP

[FACT comments: FACT is not a defender of pornography. However, even pornography must be defended, no matter how distasteful, as an essential part of free speech. We feel that this issue does not make nearly as much of an impact on our society as the loss of our freedoms through censorship.]

Japan’s top court rules American Robert Mapplethorpe’s erotic photo book is not obscene
By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press: February 19, 2008

Japan’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a collection of erotic photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe does not violate obscenity laws, a decision that should allow the sale of the book for the first time in eight years.

The decision overturns a 2003 Tokyo High Court ruling that the book “Mapplethorpe” was indecent, court spokesman Takashi Ando said. It was believed to be the first time the top court has overruled a lower court ruling on obscenity.

The court, however, rejected publisher Takashi Asai’s demands for government compensation of 2.2 million yen (US$20,370; €13,920), Ando said. Asai, of Uplink publishers, had been fighting a 1999 confiscation of the book and his voluntary 2000 suspension on its sales after Tokyo Police warnings.

Mapplethorpe died of AIDS at age 42 in March 1989, but his images, including human bodies, sex and nudity, have remained controversial. High-profile opposition forced the cancellation of an exhibition of his work in Washington, D.C. in 1989.

In Tuesday’s ruling, justice Kohei Nasu said the book of black-and-white portraits “compiles works from the artistic point of view, and is not obscene as a whole,” the conservative Yomiuri newspaper quoted the judge as saying.

The decision, a majority opinion of the five-judge bench, also recognized Mapplethorpe as “an artist who has won high appreciation as a leading figure in contemporary art,” Kyodo News agency reported.

Japanese customs have a long history of applying conservative obscenity standard, by targeting all clear genital images in prints and films across the board, forcing film distributors and publishers to alter the parts, prompting criticisms by artists who said such measures insult their works.

Asai called the ruling “groundbreaking” and said it “could change the obscenity standard” used for banning foreign films that show nudity and censoring photographs in books.

In a commentary Tuesday, the Yomiuri newspaper said that the Supreme Court ruling reflected a change in the concept of what constitutes obscenity.

“Obscene images have spread on the Internet and are accessible to anyone. The supreme court must have decided that calling a highly acclaimed photographer’s book ‘obscenity’ does not fit today’s social norm,” the Yomiuri said.

Asai had sold about 900 copies the Japanese version of “Mapplethorpe,” which was originally published by Random House, in Japan starting in 1994 without objection from authorities.

But airport customs officials in Japan confiscated a copy he had with him when he returned from a trip to the U.S. in 1999. The 384-page book contained 20 close-up photos of male genitalia, and authorities considered it obscene.
Asai said he suspended sales of the Japanese edition of the book in May 2000 after Tokyo Metropolitan Police summoned him to the police station and warned him about the book.

In 2002 he won a case in Tokyo District Court and the government was ordered to return the confiscated copy of the book and pay 700,000 yen (US$6,480; €4,430) in damages. But the high court overturned that ruling a year later.

©2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.