Two dildos and a phallic image will be hauled as evidence before a Middlesex district court Monday.

The items are taken from a recent Cambridge art exhibit that has provoked a bitter debate about free speech and artistic license in both the Cambridge city council and the local arts community over the last month.

In the latest episode of this expanding controversy, City Councillor William H. Walsh today will file a criminal complaint against a Cambridge artist, charging him with public dissemination of obscene and pornographic materials through his art show.

The misdemeanor charge is a cross-complaint in response to an earlier charge filed on October 18 by the artist, Hans Evers, who accused Walsh of malicious destruction of personal property.

Both complaints will be heard November 7 by the clerk magistrate in the Third District Court of Eastern Middlesex who will decide whether to press criminal charges, according to James J. Rafferty, Walsh's attorney.

According to chapter 272, section 29 of the Massachusetts General Laws, the maximum penalty for knowingly spreading obscene matter is five years imprisonment or a fine of up to $10,000.

The legal brouhaha began on October 5 when Walsh removed three items from "Identidem," Evers' solo art show at Gallery 57--a public art space in the City Hall Annex on Inman Street.

Generating a storm of controversy, Walsh brought the items--which included two dildos--to City Manager Robert W. Healy's office. But Healy returned them to the Cambridge Arts Council, which operates the gallery, and the items were subsequently reinstalled.

While the show closed on Friday, the criminal complaints have opened a Pandora's Box of bitter accusations and invective.

The battle has pitted the local art community's defense of Evers' freedom of speech and artistic integrity, against the charges of city employees and councillors, who say the exhibition is simply pornography and possibly sexual harassment.

The exhibition proved so explosive that Pallas C. Lombardi, acting director of the arts council, placed panels around the exhibition, guarding it from the view of passers-by.

It was the first time in the history of Gallery 57 that barriers had to be placed around a show.

'$25 Worth of Plastic'

At the center of the controversy is Bill Walsh.

Two days after the Evers' October 3 opening, Walsh removed two dildos and a phallic image imprinted on a wooden box from the show, according to his attorney, James J. Rafferty.