Opening reception: 7-10 PM, Thursday July 8, 1999, Blackout Books, 50 Ave B, between 3rd and 4th Streets Manhattan.
provided through OPENAIR-MARKET NET
Lederman, who is known as one of the Mayor's most persistent critics, has been arrested 38 times for his anti-Giuliani paintings, demonstrations and essays. He is also the President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics) and was the main plaintiff in a lawsuit ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, which gave street artists the same First Amendment rights as newspaper publishers and book vendors. These extremely controversial Giuliani paintings are made with acrylic paint on corrugated cardboard recycled from the street and have been seen many times in newspapers and on television during protests against the Mayor's policies.
Mayor Giuliani has made more than 15 public statements angrily denouncing these images which often turn up unexpectedly at his fund-raisers, political speeches and at public hearings.
Click here for a glimpse of some of these paintings from an earlier exhibit.
Some Quotes About The Paintings
"But the Mayor repeated his anger over signs and chants at the post-Diallo protests that liken him to Adolf Hitler. "The comparisons to Hitler, Adolf Hitler, and fascism have to stop, because they're sick, perverted, and they do affect some people," he said. "Invocations of Adolf Hitler are despicable no matter who it is. Nobody should participate in it, and nobody should do it." -NY Times Sunday March 28, 1999- "After Meeting Mayor Vows Major Changes for Police"
"Are you personally stung by those signs at the demonstrations that say 'Adolf Giuliani'? Five years ago I might have cried over it. And now I just feel that this is a crazy exaggeration that we've allowed, and that our media coverage is selective... You cover Susan Sarandon. But [the police and the rest of the city] see the Adolf Hitler signs, the comparisons to the president of Yugoslavia. These [demonstrators] are getting arrested, some knowingly, some unknowingly, under that banner." -Newsweek 4/5/99 Rudy on the Record
"His voice choking with emotion and his fists clenched for emphasis, Mayor Giuliani yesterday demanded "respect and understanding" for his cops in the fiercest speech he has delivered since the killing of Amadou Diallo. Just two hours before four cops were charged with Diallo's murder - and only 3 miles from the Bronx courthouse - Giuliani urged protesters to lay down their "racist signs" and begged New Yorkers to stop second-guessing the NYPD.
"It's about time to stop carrying signs pretending police officers are racists," the mayor told 175 cheering cops. "It's about time to stop carrying signs equating them to the KKK. And it's about time to stop carrying signs that invoke Adolf Hitler about our police." As he stood at the red-brick stationhouse, Giuliani attacked police "bashers" as "the worst elements in society." -Daily News 4/1/99 "The Mayor Rails Vs. Cop Bashers"
"We'll say it simply: Just because people don't like Rudy Giuliani doesn't give them license to compare him to Adolf Hitler. The Hitler analogy is something that seems to amuse many people in this city. Cutesy stories have been written and published in the past week about an art installation on Madison Avenue called No York in which the mayor is depicted with a Hitler moustache. This image was first bandied about by an obnoxious twerp who claims to represent a group called A.R.T.I.S.T. - but which really ought to be called M.O.R.O.N. - who is outraged that the mayor attempted to enforce plainly written statutes regarding sidewalk clutter in front of the Metropolitan Museum. For this, the twerp (whose name we shall never again use because he deserves no more public mention) imagines that Rudy Giuliani deserves comparison with the personification of evil in this century...As the New York Times' gleeful seizure of the "bunker" story indicates, you don't have to be a cabbie, a vendor or a M.O.R.O.N. to issue forth such repulsive opinions. -NY Post Editorial 6/16/98
"I take a different view of someone comparing me to Adolf Hitler than when someone calls me a jerk." Mayor Giuliani, N.Y. Daily News 10/25/1998
For information contact:
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics), (718) 369-2111
Email: ARTISTpres@aol.com
Website: http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html