MAIL-ORDER MAPPLETHORPE

By DANIEL S. LEVY

REMEMBER ROBERT Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano and Karen Finley, those artistic troublemakers who were targeted by Senator Jesse Helms and other moral guardians campaigning against government funding of "obscene" art? They're back. But in this case, they're not hitting up the National Endowment for the Arts for money. Their work, along with that of nearly 80 other contemporary artists, can now be ordered via an 800 number. The source of this marketing ploy is an innovative free-market effort to compensate for the dicey state of federal arts funding: the Art Matters gift catalog.

Helms and his fellow watchdogs need not worry; the first edition of the catalog, published last month, contains no S&M poodle collars, urine-filled snow globes or bare-bottomed Barbie dolls. Indeed, the items are often striking but decidedly noncontroversial. There is a plate decorated with one of Mapplethorpe's virginal-looking calla-lily photos (price: $125) and a sand-filled "remembrance box" designed by Finley as a "personal altar" to dead loved ones ($54). One can also buy a cardboard chair that supports a 250-lb. person ($35), as well as assorted candles, lamps, place mats, letter openers and dog toys.

Museums and companies, of course, have long hawked vases by Picasso, textiles by Miro and tiles by Dal'. None, however, has utilized the idea quite like Art Matters Inc., a New York City-based foundation that supports artists. Since 1985 the foundation has distributed $3 million to 3,000 artists, helping pay for such works as Paris Is Burning, Jennie Livingston's 1990 film about transsexuals and drag queens. The group has also aggressively battled cuts in federal arts funding, taking part, for example, in a successful 1990 lawsuit to prevent the nea from denying funding to artists just because their work is perceived by some as offensive.

The sources of the foundation's money, however, have been drying up; its individual grants have dropped from an average of $3,000 in 1991 to about $1,000 today. So to keep the money flowing, Art Matters decided to pump half of its $2 million endowment into a mail-order business. "I suspect that a lot of nonprofits and foundations will have to be very creative in how they acquire money so that they can give money," says visual artist Jenny Holzer, who has emblazoned tumblers with such slogans as "What Urge Will Save Us Now That Sex Won't?" for the catalog.

In its first month the catalog brought in more than $200,000 in sales. If it succeeds, Art Matters hopes to double its endowment in five years. If not, the foundation may simply fold. That would be a blow in an era when the arts are undersupported. "It is important that people realize that art is not an exclusive practice," says Serrano, whose lush photo of a cathedral doorway appears in the foundation's 1996 calendar. "Art is not a radical thing." Maybe not, but as the catalog shows, funding the arts these days requires radical tactics.