"It wasn't art, it was pure obscenity," Walsh said yesterday, defending his actions. "These objects were purchased by [Evers]. They were not sculpted or crafted by him."

"You usually see a theme or purpose in an artwork," the councillor added. "Not one person could give any theme or purpose that made any sense to me."

Walsh, who was convicted in April on 41 counts of bank fraud and conspiracy, awaits sentencing next Wednesday. The councillor has clung to his city council seat, despite other councillors' calls for his resignation.

Walsh said the exhibition had a sensationalizing effect, showing sexually explicit work just for show. "This was 'How far can you go?'" he asked. "That's all it was."

Walsh has refuted the attacks of arts activists who have complained that his actions reflected censorship and a violation of Evers' constitutional rights.

"Where does the First Amendment stop?" he asked. "If you walk nude in the street, you're going to get arrested. You can't even display these objects in a store."

Rafferty blamed the arts council for not exercising more supervision over its shows.

"The arts council all but concedes now they had an error in judgment in failing to predict the offense this would generate," said the lawyer, a former Cambridge school committee member who is representing Walsh pro bono.

He said the arts council is out of touch with public dissatisfaction over the exhibition.

"I find it absurd that they're that out of touch with the public," Rafferty continued. "For them to totally ignore the objections demonstrates an amazing ignorance of what their public function is."

Vice Mayor Sheila T. Russell agreed yesterday that the exhibit constituted artistic recklessness and sexual harassment on the part of the artist.

Russell added that Gallery 57 artists need to be accountable to the city employees who work in the Annex.

"The women down at City Hall Annex felt as though they were victims of sexual harassment," Russell said. "They felt they were being ignored."

"I think there's a boundary between what's art and what's junk," she continued. "Twenty-five dollars worth of plastic is junk. That whole exhibit was a fraud."

Russell insisted that the artist was insensitive to both city workers and the public. "If they're going to put up something controversial, they should think of the taxpayers."