Artists Protest Giuliani s Personal Appearance
at His Photo Show Part II
(This Time He ll Be There In Person)
Friday 5/15/98 Leica Gallery #670 Broadway 6 P.M.
Contact # (718) 369-2111

Last Friday 5/8/98 Mayor Giuliani uncharacteristically declined to
attend his own opening at the Leica Gallery, preferring to answer
questions about why the City s street artists are protesting against
him from the relative safety of a City Hall press conference.
According to N.Y.P.D. Intelligence officers, this Friday 5/15 he ll
show up in person, along with various luminaries he hopes will
invest $500 each for one of his  View From the Capital of the
World  photos.

On Wednesday 5/13 Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
received a call [a tape recording is available] from N.Y.P.D.
Intelligence asking how many demonstrators he d bring to the
private opening and what he planned for the event. The police were
unable to explain how they knew Lederman would be there, since
no announcement about the event had been made up to that time
by either Lederman or the Mayor s office.

Lederman has been arrested 31 times since Giuliani was first
inaugurated and is routinely taken into custody while protesting
the Mayor s quality of life policies or displaying huge unflattering
portraits of Giuliani on the street. Lederman and fellow
artist/activists Wei Zhang, Knut Masco and Jack Nesbitt are
co-plaintiffs in a $200 million dollar lawsuit against the Mayor
charging violations of their civil rights, false arrest, destruction of
their art, selective enforcement and malicious prosecution.

Lederman presently has 25 different cases pending in Manhattan
Criminal Court and was recently told by a judge that he has more
open cases than any defendant in New York State. Each case
involves him opposing the Mayor by publicly speaking, leafleting,
writing  Giuliani=Police State  with chalk on the sidewalk,
organizing demonstrations, displaying political paintings or selling
collages of his arrest photos while protesting outside the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Artist member Knut Masco, who
dresses in a prison uniform and displays a sign to passing traffic
that says,  Honk If You Can t Stand Giuliani , currently has 18
open cases. Jack Nesbitt has 12 open cases. Wei Zhang, who left
China to seek artistic freedom after his art was destroyed by police
in Tianimen Sq. has 7 open cases.

After listening to the recording of N.Y.P.D. Intelligence Police
calling Lederman, Andrew Miltenberg, the attorney representing
the artists in Federal Court stated,  This is outright police
harassment. They call up my client and want to know if he s
planning to commit a crime so that they can be prepared to arrest
him. Under Giuliani, peaceful political protest is categorized as
just another  quality of life  violation .

In a 5/7/98 N.Y.Times article about the Mayor s show, Christyne
Lategano, the Mayor s most ardent defender, said the artist protest
was in poor taste, and that the Mayor heavily supported arts
institutions. At a press conference on 5/8 Giuliani attempted to
brush off repeated questions about the street artist issue, claiming
that the daily arrests and confiscations he s ordered are aimed at
stopping congestion and have,  nothing to do with the First
Amendment . Lederman claims the artist arrests are part of a
Giuliani facilitated takeover of public property by real estate
interests. The Mayor has recently been attempting to portray
himself as an arts advocate. Besides having a show of his
photographs he s pledged $65 million dollars to the Museum of
Modern Art, a private institution run by some of the city s
wealthiest banking and  real estate interests.

Lederman issued the following statement in response to the
Mayor s art show:
 We encourage every New Yorker to see for themselves how a
Mayor who s ordered thousands of works or fine art destroyed;
who s had hundreds of artists arrested; and who, after failing to
harass and intimidate artists off the streets, tried to get the U.S.
Supreme Court to eliminate First Amendment protection for all
visual art, now wants to pose as one of the very people he s been
persecuting. The Mayor s latest tactic demonstrates the
importance of artists to New York City s economy and serves to
expose the hypocrisy of the Mayor s  quality of life  war against
artists. If the Mayor wants to be an artist, we invite him to join us
on the street and experience the daily arrests, confiscations and
harassment real artists have to go through in order to show their
art in Giuliani s Police State .

Contact#: Robert Lederman (718) 369-2111 E-Mail:
[log in to unmask]  Andrew Miltenberg (212) 481-4242
To read the 2nd circuit decision granting street artists full First
Amendment protection go to:
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
Mayor s Press Office 788-2958; Parks Comm. Henry Stern
360-1305; Thomas Rozinski, legal counsel Parks 360-1314;
William Leurs, Pres. Met Museum 570-3900; Museum Press
office 570-3951
*Also see: N.Y. Times Editorial 4/28/98,  Restoring the City Arts
Budget ; N.Y. Times 4/24/98,  MOMA to Get $65 Million for
Expansion ; NY Times 3/2/98 B1  Artists Arrested in Protest
Near Museum ;  Newsday 3/2/98 A7; Village Voice 2/24/98 pg 57
 Chronic Offender ; Newsday 2/26/98 A8; NY Times editorial
3/4/98; Newsday 3/16/98 pg 4. NY TIMES Metro pg 1 3/22/98
 War of the Paintbrushes ; Time Out 4/16-23/98 pg. 39  Brush
With Danger ; N.Y. Times Metro 4/18/98  Judge Upholds Limit
on Artists Selling Pictures Near Museum ; Newsday 4/20/98
cover story  Under Giuliani City Has Repeatedly Stifled Dissent ;
N.Y. Times 5/7/98 pg B4  For Giuliani, A Different Big Picture .