A racy new exhibit on display at a Lower East Side art gallery is causing great tsuris among its Orthodox Jewish neighbors.
Members of a nearby synagogue and Hebrew school are outraged over the lurid artwork on display in the Allegra LaViola Gallery's new "Pornucopia" exhibit, which features a slew of sexy nude images of men and women, some having sex.
Some of the "porn" pieces are clearly visible through the East Broadway gallery's windows -- and people are fuming that kids are being exposed to smut.
"This is disgusting. This is absolutely unacceptable," said Miriam Katz, a teacher at the nearby Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem. "My students are innocent children, and they walk by and shouldn't be exposed to this disgrace. This is pornography.
"You see in quite detail the anatomy of women. There's a yeshiva there with boys who pass by every day."
The "Pornucopia" exhibit features works such as "Young Girl on Doll" by Prudence Whittlesey, "Hot and Bothered" by Kara Maria and "Crap and S- - -" by Paul Brainard. The display closes on March 18.
Gallery owner Allegra LaViola, 30, last week defended "Pornucopia," saying people living in a cosmopolitan place like New York should be used to such displays.
"Then they asked if I would put a curtain up, I said . . . we actually live in New York City, not in the woods of Maine."
LaViola said that she's gotten at least five complaints and that someone from the Jewish community even called the cops.
"I got a very angry rant call from a man saying we were putting pornography in the public sphere," she said. "We said it's an art gallery, we're allowed to put this up.
"Two days later, I got the first visit from the police . . . [the officers] said, 'We don't see any problem here,' and the police told one of the callers that it was my First Amendment right to put works on the wall."
Despite LaViola's constitutional rights, people in the Jewish community think she should care more for her neighbors' feelings and keep graphic images inside the gallery -- or cover them up.
"It's disgusting. It's bad news," said Rebetzin Esther Horowitz, 49, who runs a preschool at Lutowisker Synagogue. "In any neighborhood, these things shouldn't be in full view. I don't know what this world is becoming."
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