Artwork Pulled From Irvine Show : Exhibition: A city-owned center removes a work with sexual content from upcoming ‘All Media ‘95,’ apparently fearing budget-cutting reprisals.

IRVINE — Officials at the city-owned Irvine Fine Arts Center, apparently fearing budget-cutting reprisals, have removed a ceramic sculpture with a visible male sex organ from “All Media ‘95,” an annual juried exhibition that opens Saturday.

Artist Phyllis Smith, a Cal State Fullerton student who lives in Fullerton, said the human figure depicted in her ceramic vessel “Harmony” represents the idea “that man and woman could live as one.” The piece had been given an Honorable Mention award, one of 11 bestowed by the show’s juror, art critic Peter Frank.

Smith said Wednesday that she was told the center might lose funding if “Harmony” were exhibited and that she had agreed to substitute another work before the show opened. She said she does not know who at the center ordered the piece to be removed.

IFAC curator Dorrit Rawlins referred questions to Pat Fierro, community services manager for Irvine. Fierro did not return repeated calls from The Times. Rawlins, Fierro and center supervisor Toni McDonald-Pang all are city employees.

In place of “Harmony,” Smith said, she plans to show “A Serpent in Her Garden,” another ceramic piece. It contains a phallic symbol in the form of a snake, she said. Although Smith also had submitted this piece to the competition, it was not selected for the show.

“I’m substituting an equally explicit [work],” Smith said, but “the male part doesn’t look exactly like a male part.” If the center rejects the substitution, Smith added, she will insist that the original piece be shown.

Juror Frank, editor of Visions art quarterly and an art critic for the L.A. Weekly, sounded resigned on Thursday about the decision.

“I’m not happy about [censoring a work of art],” Frank said, “but I’d be a lot less happy if the center itself were to close. What I’m least happy about is that [sexual subject matter] has to be a concern at all. But nowadays even small acts of defiance result in large acts of closure. . . . There are so many censorious people in positions of power.”

Frank said he had been told that the center had received complaints in the past about genitalia in art exhibited there. The rules for the competition, open to artists living in Orange County, included no restrictions on the content of art works that could be submitted. The show includes work by 70 artists and is scheduled to run through Sept. 1.