BRAD DOHERTY

Brad Doherty has been selected by Playboy Magazine to present a one-man show at Hugh Hefner's Los Angeles mansion. Doherty has entitled his show Flores Silvestres. These black-and-whites are intimate stills of open vaginas.

"Georgia O'Keeffe has returned to life through the lens of Mr. Doherty," said a famed New York art critic. "I never realized how pretty a pussy could be. I thought for a moment that I was strolling through a garden of sin. The exhibition, believe it or not, doesn't make you horny unless you're a lesbian. Mr. Doherty has imbued sexuality with an ineffable spirituality."

Doherty confessed in an interview that genitalia have always fascinated him, beginning with the discovery of his own penis at the age of three.

"My mother would read to me each night about the miracles of Jesus Christ, but once I found that magic wand between my legs, I began to transport myself to places to which I continue to return again and again," he explained.

Doherty embarked on his present work five years ago.

"I never enjoyed cunnilingus until I met a woman I admired who insisted I eat her if I expected to please her physically," he explained. "I metamorphosed into a bee and imagined myself in pollen heaven. As a result, I tasted the nectar of the gods."

Doherty added that he did exclude some pictures.

"Not all pussies smell or look like roses."

Though controversial, Doherty has received the overwhelming support of artists for his upcoming exhibition.

"He injects his camera into the Garden of Eden," wrote the New Yorker.

"I felt one with my mother when I witnessed all those beautiful beavers," raved Cosmopolitan.

"Brad Doherty's Flores Silvestres is the Book of Genesis come to life," observed The New York Times. "It's a seminal expression. He deserves a Texas flag."

While Silvestres Flores has been a critical success, there have been detractors. The majority aver that Doherty has squeezed the sensuality out of his sexual subjects.

"Doherty has reduced the vagina to a head of lettuce," preached the bishop in his Sunday homily at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral. "I feel like I'm reaching into a crisper and pulling out a cold vegetable when I view his portraits. There is no human heat. Everybody is asking the same question: Does Doherty hate women?"

"Brad Doherty is an idiot for focusing on such a superficial part of the body," stammered an infuriated female detractor. "All he does is waste his money on watching women strip and he can't even touch them. What is the point of being married to such a fiend? He has a pretty wife. Why insult her with his childish obsession?

"Why upgrade this trash with a national spotlight? How stupid! Do we have no values? I believe this Anglo has become a macho Mexican like the rest of the brown pendejos who inhabit our town. My husband may not be the most handsome white man, but he knows who wears the pants in this family.

"How about substantial art? There are legitimate artists out there, even in this town, who are talented and not puerile, absent-minded, gray-hair old men who subsist on Viagra. Real artists paint, not press a button."

Doherty has his defenders.

"I must reply with vigor to the excoriation of my friend, the photographer Brad 'The Last Labia' Doherty," began novelist Jack O'Connell. "Perhaps it is because I come with inside info only a true friend has at his disposal, but let me inject this into the debate over Brad's exhibit featuring the vagina.

"Doherty, a man by his own admission fearless in the rack when faced with a hairy, open-air pussy, loves women. In fact, it is Doherty who once said as he plowed his way through the infamous Zumbido of Matamoros: 'I like to fuck a woman so that she stays fucked.'

"Brad's latest cunt exhibit--Flores Silvestres--stands alone in the art world. It rivals my latest work--Maria Felix's Nalgas at Noon--in verve and scope. Why agonize over beauty?"