portrait artiats arrested in park[A.R.T.I.S.T.]
ARTISTpres
the Reason People Are Afraid To Go Into
New York City's Parks?
*Did you know that the police have begun arresting portrait artists in
Central Park and confiscating their drawing
pads, pencils and portfolios for the "crime" of sketching portraits?
*Did you know that ARTISTS have a FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT to use public
sidewalks and public parks to
create, display and sell their art and that the U.S. Supreme Court
considers original art to be a fundamental form
of speech equivalent to the written or spoken word?
*Did you know that according to New York City's absurd ordinances, DOGS
have more right to use the sidewalks
and public parks than ARTISTS do?
Did you know that over 200 ARTISTS have been handcuffed, arrested and had
their original fine art confiscated
by the N.Y.P.D. during the past 18 months, yet none have been found guilty
in a court of law or received a trial?
*Did you know that New York City sells the original art it has illegally
confiscated from artists at monthly Police
Department auctions, without having found the artists guilty of any crime?
*Did you know that, once arrested, DRUG DEALERS, MURDERERS and THIEVES get
better legal treatment than
ARTISTS in our politically motivated court system?
*Did you know that police officers stationed in Central Park, when asked
why they spend so much time harassing
artists answered, "I don't give a damn about the First Amendment!", and,
"I'm not interested in the Constitution!".
*Did you know that some officers of the N.Y.P.D. believe they work for the
Fifth Avenue Association, a
billionaire's lobbying group opposed to First Amendment freedoms, rather
than the "People of New York City"?
*Did you ever think about showing or selling your own art on the street or
about sketching in a park?
*Did you know that the N.Y.P.D. considers it a top priority to arrest
artists; that it has even confiscated art from
senior citizens and children who dared to display their artwork along a
public sidewalk or in a park?
*Did you know that most cities throughout the world allow, and even
encourage, street displays by artists?
*Did you know that at the same time it is persecuting and harassing
artists, New York City advertises their
presence on the streets in tourist magazines as a good reason to visit New
York?
*Did you know that at a public meeting in the 92nd Street YMHA on 9/29/94,
MAYOR GIULIANI said, "I recognize
that artists have a First Amendment right to display and sell their art on
the streets of New York City", yet he
has done nothing to stop the arrests? Elected public officials and
officers of the N.Y.P.D. are sworn to uphold
the U.S. and New York State Constitutions. Why don't they? Artists pose no
health or safety risks to the public.
They are not obstructing sidewalks or paths. They are not damaging park
property. Public parks and streets are
exactly where the protection of First Amendment freedom is strongest.
There are thousands of acres of publicly
owned parks in New York City. Central Park itself contains 800 acres of
land. The vast majority of New Yorkers,
and millions of visitors to this city, want to see artists in the parks.
Why is eliminating artists from streets and
parks a top police priority? Do you want your tax dollars spent
persecuting artists?
*****Want to help? Call the Central Park Precinct at: (212) 570-4820. Let
them know how you feel about their
treatment of artists. Call the Parks Administration at: (212) 360-8257.
Ask them to tell the police to leave artists
alone! For more information on this issue, including a detailed discussion
of the constitutional reasons why artists
can legally create, display and sell their art on city streets or within
any public park contact:
Robert Lederman, president of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal
State Tactics) (718) 369-2111. Central
Park's artists need your help. By calling the numbers listed above you can
help change this policy
of arresting portrait artists, painters and photographers. The freedom you
save, may be your own.
STOP ARRESTING ARTISTS!
A.R.T.I.S.T.(Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics)
Robert Lederman, president 255 13 Street Brooklyn, N.Y. (718) 369-2111
A memo concerning the 8/8/95 meeting concerning artist permits in the
Parks. [This was delivered to
the police and Park Administrators in an attempt to make them aware of the
constitutional issues
involved.]
Recently, artists sketching portraits or displaying their paintings within
New York City parks have
repeatedly been threatened with arrest, confiscation of their art and
summonses. The main problem with
this policy of persecuting artists, besides it not working, is that
artists and their creations, unlike
general vendors selling merchandise, are protected by the First Amendment.
The U.S. Supreme Court
recently affirmed that visual art, even art with no particularized
message, is fully protected by the First
Amendment.
Artists, whether creating, displaying or selling their art, are exercising
their right to free speech. Public
parks, like public sidewalks, are among the forums where freedom of speech
is most fully protected.
To restrict a fundamental constitutional right like speech (or to require
a permit before one can engage
in it), there must be a compelling government interest involved, such as
public health or safety.
The Parks Department and N.Y.P.D. point to the occassional congestion
along Wein Walk as their
"compelling" reason for restricting the constitutional freedom of visual
artists throughout the entire
parks system. Yet, an unlimited, unlicensed and virtually unrestricted
public remains free to walk,
speak, play team sports, jog, skateboard, rollerblade, bicycle and walk
dogs through New York City
parks every day. They, along with hot dog carts, Marathons, horse drawn
carriages, vehicular traffic and
immense commercial promotions such as Disney's Poccahontas premiere create
congestion, pollution,
accidents, injuries, health problems, damage to the parks flora and
occassionally even deaths. No such
effects have ever been alleged to have been caused by artists sketching,
displaying or selling their art.
The City and the Parks Department have already conceded that artists have
a First Amendment right to
create and display their art on public streets and within the parks
system. It is only the selling of art,
rather than its creation or display, that is at question here.
The selling of a work of art, like the sale of a book or a newspaper, is
integral to its distribution.
According to the New York City Vending Ordinance, books and newspapers may
be sold without a
license or permit of any kind, based on the First Amendment right to free
speech. Prohibiting the sale
of art on public streets or in parks unfairly restricts artists' freedom
to distribute their speech, and is
a prior restraint on their creative expression. It violates the equal
protection clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment as well, because book vendors are allowed to sell books
throughout the city without a
license. Allowing artists to display but not sell their art, makes little
sense from the point of view of
congestion or public safety.
Last month, in order to remedy congestion attributed to portrait artists
who set up along Wein Walk,
the Parks Department, created a system of 24 permits, distributed through
a monthly lottery. Within the
limited confines of Wein Walk, this was a reasonable response, though not
the only possible one, to a
very specific problem.
No such specific problem involving artists exists anywhere else within the
Parks system. This
congestion problem was in part caused by the N.Y.P.D. harrassing portrait
artists everywhere else in
the City and driving them, refugee style, into the Park. This same pattern
can be observed in SoHo,
where artists cluster together for protection from the police.
Limiting the total number of artists who will be allowed to exercise their
right of speech within the
entire Parks system to 29, 129 or 1,029 is unnecessary when considering
the total area of the Parks
system, the benign nature of this activity and its unquestioned
constitutional basis. The focus should
be on creating rules aimed at keeping walkways clear and preventing too
many artists from clustering
in one spot, rather than keeping them out of the parks alltogether.
If the severely limited system of permits now being considered goes
forward as planned it will be a
failure and will actually cause more problems and conflict than presently
exist. Artists lacking the
permit will continue to set up anyway. Being outside of the system, they
will have no incentive to
follow whatever rules the Parks Department may create in order to regulate
them. Arresting the
numerous artists who have no permit will lead to the same conditions in
the park that now exist on the
street. Police demand a license that is virtually unobtainable. Artists
continue to set up throughout the
city without a license and follow no rules whatsoever because they are
harassed by the police regardless
of where or how they set up their display.
The City has wasted tremendous resources arresting these artists and
confiscating their art, rather than
making a few reasonable rules to guide their behavior. They've also
incurred tremendous legal liability,
and very negative publicity, by forcibly, and sometimes violently,
violating artists' constitutional rights.
The public has no further tolerance for such police tactics being used
against portrait artists,
photographers and painters on the street, let alone in our public parks.
The City has yet to sucessfully prosecute any of the hundreds of artists
already arrested because of the
constitutional issues involved. If a workable system is desired, rather
than one doomed to failure, these
realities need to be taken seriously.
A reasonable and acceptable list of rules for artists working in the park
system (with or without a
permit), would include the following:
1. Only artists creating, displaying or selling their own original fine
art will be allowed to work in the
park. This includes painters, portrait artists, photographers and
sculptors. No one may sell another
artists' work.
2. Artists may not block paths, damage park property or obstruct public
convieniences such as water
fountains, restrooms etc.
3. Artists may not use fire hydrants, public benches, trees, lightpoles or
fences to conduct business or
as supports for their displays.
4. Artists may use no more than [for example: 4' X 8'] of space. They may
not block the flow of
pedestrian traffic. They must also take responsibility to ask people
involved in viewing their art not to
block the paths.
5. Artists may not litter, deface walkways with paint or otherwise
negatively impact the park
environment.
6. Artists may not aggressively solicit passerbys to have portraits done
or to buy their art.
7. Where conditions of overcrowding exist, police may direct artists to
set up elsewhere within the Parks
system.
While simple, these rules are easy to follow and would address all of the
legitimate concerns voiced by
the Police and Parks Departments. Allowed to go more or less wherever they
liked within the park
system, artists would spread out rather than be clustered together in one
location. For locations that
attracted an especially large number of artists, such as Wein Walk, a
lottery/permit system can still be
sucessfully instituted, as long as other areas remain unrestricted.
Outside of those few very desirable
locations, (Wein Walk, the small park on 4th Street and Sixth Avenue,
etc.) artists would only need a
letter or I.D. from the Parks Department that identified them as the
creator of the art. This would
eliminate the potential for non-artists vending other people's art.
The vast majority of the public appreciates artists, wants to see them in
the parks and searches (usually
without sucess) to find them. Their presence can enhance the publics'
sense of safety within New York
City's Parks rather than diminishing it. When parks are known as places to
view art and meet artists,
many more people will be encouraged to visit and enjoy them.
Artists would prefer a system of reasonable rules, without requiring
permits. Creating a limited system
of permits that excludes the majority of artists already working in the
parks, and makes no provision
for whatever additional number of artists who may want to make use of the
parks in the future, is simply
not going to work.
Artists are intelligent and disciplined individuals. They are capable of
regulating themselves, if given
a chance to do so, and clear rules to follow. If artists are viewed as a
valuable resource that can help
develop public use of the parks, rather than as a problem needing to be
eliminated from them, we can
move this issue in a constructive and positive direction.