For Immediate Release (8/24/98):
provided through OPENAIR-MARKET NET
Yesterday seven Parks Enforcement vehicles and numerous officers arrived in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and began issuing summonses to artists that did not have a Parks Department artist permit. At least one artist, Patrick Christiano, was arrested and is still being held by police.
Christiano was one of three artists whose cases were dismissed on 8/12/98 by Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Lucy Billings, who ruled that the artist permit violated the Federal and N.Y. State Constitutions, the 1996 street artist Federal suit (Bery et al v. City of New York/Lederman et al v City of New York) and the laws of the City of New York [see N.Y. Law Journal 8/17; N.Y. Times 8/18; N.Y. Post Editorial 8/20].
Members of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response to Illegal State Tactics) will begin a demonstration and sell-in on Tuesday 8/25 starting at 11 A.M. in front of the Met. Aside from the fine art traditionally sold in this location protesters will be displaying satirical portraits of Mayor Giuliani as Hitler and selling copies of the N.Y. Times, Daily News, N.Y. Post, Village Voice and Newsday alongside their art.
When the Parks Department began its permit policy in March the artist group demonstrated there for 65 days resulting in more than 40 arrests and hundreds of summonses. None of these cases has ever been brought to trial. The group A.R.T.I.S.T. is a plaintiff in an ongoing Federal suit against the Parks Department artist-permit, (Lederman et al v Giuliani).
Attorneys for the plaintiffs in that lawsuit are expected to ask Federal Judge Lawrence McKenna to reopen the issue of issuing an injunction (see N.Y. Times 4/18/98) in the case this week, based on substantial information that the lawyers representing the City lied to the judge about enforcing a non-existent permit requirement around parks for book and newspaper vendors as well as artists. Book vendors have been exempt from needing any license or permit since 1982. Since winning their first lawsuit in 1996 artists have also been exempt from a license or permit requirement, based on the First Amendment and the laws of the City of New York.
For more information contact Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics) (718) 369-2111 e mail ARTISTpres@aol.com For more material on this issue go to http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html