The strife that has consumed museums from New York to Cincinnati has come to roost on Woodward Avenue.

The central issues in the controversy – art about sex, race and religion – are the centerpieces in a conflict that has pitted artist Jef Bourgeau, whose museum gallery is in Pontiac, against the venerable Detroit Institute of Arts. Bourgeau’s show, "Art Until Now," was scheduled to run through Feb. 13, offering an overview – sometime serious, sometimes tongue-in-cheek – of the breadth of art in the 20^th Century. The show, which began last week, is on hold.

It’s not uncommon for curators and artists to make changes in exhibitions, for reasons ranging from space limitations to possible negative audience reaction. But normally such changes are made quietly before the exhibition officially opens, without the public being privy to the decision.

In July, the DIA removed a print by artist Kara Walker from "Where the Girls Are: Prints by Women from the DIA’s Collection." Several board members and representatives of the museum’s Friends of African and African American Art complained that the piece had offensive racial overtones.

"We are a big public museum – the only one in this town," said David Penney, the museum’s chief curator. "As a result, we have a tremendous responsibility to community."

In September, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani threatened to cut off $7 million in funding to the Brooklyn Museum of Art because of a show called "Sensations" that he said would offend people’s religious sensibilities.

DIA Director Graham Beal, who came to the museum Sept. 20, declined to exhibit "Sensations" on three occasions when he was director at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

"Art Until Now" is a show that Bourgeau and Maryann Wilkinson, the DIA’s curator for Modern and Contemporary Art, had discussed for nearly two years. But when the first part of the show was brought into the small gallery – it’s just 16 by 20 feet – one DIA staff member expressed concern about what he saw. Among the most problematic were "Bathtub Jesus," which had a small, stuffed doll of Jesus in a bathtub with a bank teller’s rubber finger protector for a penis, and a piece whose title includes a racial slur that the Free Press does not print. The title is a reference of a work by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

It’s rare that the museum finds itself not knowing what is coming into its galleries. But Bourgeau is a well-respected artist and director of Pontiac’s Museum of Contemporary Art, so Wilkinson said she felt comfortable in giving him great freedom to develop the show. In his turn, Bourgeau said the museum was given a sixty page binder with information and images of all the proposed work.

Ideally, Beal would have surveyed the show before it opened to the public. But Beal had been working a severely curtailed schedule since he was struck by a car on Nov. 11. He saw the as-still-incomplete show Thursday, and Friday afternoon he decided to shut it down completely.

"It’s all up in the air," said Beal, who said that if Bourgeau and museum curators can reach some compromises, the show could continue with its 12-week run. But the distance between the two sides is growing greater everyday, with Bourgeau accusing the museum of not only refusing any discussions but barring him from reentry and curators responding that the artist is unwilling to seek compromise.