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
overturned 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 demand for
government compensation of $20,370, Ando said. Asai, of
Uplink publishers, had been fighting a 1999
confiscation of the book and his voluntary 2000
suspension of its sales after police warnings.
Mapplethorpe died
of AIDS complications at age 42 in March 1989, but his
images, including sex and nudity, have remained
controversial. High-profile opposition forced the
cancellation of an exhibition of his work in
Washington 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 national
Yomiuri newspaper reported.
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.
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.
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 United States
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 in May 2000 after
Tokyo Metropolitan Police summoned him and gave him a
warning.
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
$6,480 in damages. But the high court overturned that
ruling a year later. (AP)
