Central Park Portrait Exchange Exhibition! Saturday, June 16, 10am-2pm

 
Finally! All 15 sets of original drawings made as part of the Central Park Portrait Exchange will be exhibited for one day only on Saturday, June 16 from 10am till 2pm - on site in the southeast corner of Central Park, 60th Street at Grand Army Plaza.

Participating artists include Amon Azizov, Wei Chen, Qiao Fu, Gao Min, Artashes Karslian, Ji Yin Jin, Li Qun, Lin Ruo, Dean Lu, Ren Jien-Guo, Jorge Rivera, Sharif Sadiq, Peter Walsh, Xiang Yue Chuan, Dario Zapata and Zhuang Xuemin.

Click here for the Facebook event page.
See the map below, or click here for a map.

"The drawings will go up in a great shaded spot just a few yards from where many of the Central Park portrait artists - like Xiang Yue Chuan and Dario Zapata - set up and work every day," says organizer Peter Walsh. "But why is space available? Because the new park rules have made this perfect location 'illegal' for artists." The one day "pop-up" exhibition can set up only because the portrait exchange drawings will be marked "For Display Only, Not For Sale."

Artists have sued the Parks Department in federal and state court. Oral arguments on the City’s motion for summary judgment in the federal lawsuit will be heard by judge Richard J. Sullivan on Thursday, June 28 at 2:30pm at the Federal Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street in Manhattan.



View Central Park Portrait Exchange Exhibition in a larger map

Portrait Exchange Exhibition on the Way!

"Exhibition-in-a-Box"

The thirty original drawings from the Central Park Portrait Exchange will be shown soon in a one day pop-up exhibition in Manhattan’s Central Park. The portable display is designed to emerge from a milk crate on wheels and unfold into an elegant display that gives park visitors – and the participating artists themselves – a chance to finally see all fifteen pairs of portrait exchanges simultaneously.

Built by project organizer and artist Peter Walsh, the “exhibition-in-a-box” will set up directly across the street from Grand Army Plaza’s Sherman monument in the southeast corner of Central Park on a spot that has recently become “off-limits” to artist vendors because of controversial new park rules instituted in 2010. Those rules have sparked several artist lawsuits against the city in both state and federal courts. Those new rules do not apply to the upcoming display of the Central Park Portrait Exchange since they explicitly impact only “expressive matter vendors” selling art in New York City parks and do not apply to artists who, as Federal Judge Richard J. Sullivan said at a court hearing in July of 2010, wish to participate in the “marketplace of ideas” by just displaying art.

Says Walsh: “This is an opportunity for a group of artists to reoccupy a part of the commons that is increasingly under attack from well-heeled interlopers who seek to reduce the varied ways in which a public park can be used by ordinary people. I can’t wait to talk to people in the park and see how they respond to the drawings. Showing art in an open public place creates incredible dialogues that go beyond what is shared in the cloistered space of galleries and museums.”

The date for the one-day show will be announced soon. For details of the ongoing construction of the exhibition, see the photo slideshow below.

Federal Judge to Review New Materials in Artists’ Suit

Following hard on the heels of revelations that New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation is no longer holding musicians and performers accountable to the same rules that apply to visual artists, Federal Judge Richard Sullivan has granted artists permission to file new materials in their ongoing lawsuit against the Parks Department.

In a May 14, 2012 letter to Judge Sullivan requesting permission to file the new materials, the artists’ attorney Julie Milner claimed that the City’s new position on buskers and entertainers was directly at odds with papers filed in federal court by the city. According to Milner, “this raises an issue of material fact of whether artists are targeted for enforcement not equally applied to similarly situated individuals.” The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires that laws be enforced consistently for individuals in similar circumstances.

Reached for comment yesterday by Village Voice reporter Victoria Bekiempis, the City’s attorney Sheryl Neufeld stated "The plaintiffs are just engaging in wishful thinking. There is nothing in today's order that supports their belief that the judge has given their contentions credence."‬

In a May 14, 2012 email, Robert Lederman, an artist plaintiff in the federal case and president of the street artists organization A.R.T.I.S.T., described the City’s new take on park rules enforcement as “explosive” and “a complete reversal of the City’s previous legal position.”

Judge Sullivan has scheduled oral arguments on the City’s motion for summary judgment for Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 2:30p.m. at the Federal Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street.

See also:

Judge Sullivan’s Order:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/93817802

Artists’ Letter to Judge Sullivan:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/93667042/Letter-to-Judge-Sullivan-to-Supplement-Record-14-May-2011


“Federal Judge To Decide if Artists Can Play in The Park”
Village Voice, Victoria Bekiempis, Tuesday, May 15 2012

Parks’ Decision to Allow Performers in Park Could Aid Artists’ Suit

The New York City Parks Department has reversed course on its policy of holding entertainers and musicians performing in city parks accountable to the same restrictive rules and regulations affecting visual artists.

In an article on the Washington Square Park Blog, Parks Spokesperson Phil Abramson announced that “Busking and entertainers are not subject to the expressive matter vending rule,” adding, “They must still abide by other park rules though such as they cannot block benches or paths, play with amplified sound, etc.” The victory for park goers and performers could aid visual artists in their ongoing suit in federal court against new expressive matter vending rules promulgated by the Parks Department beginning in 2010.

According to an article published by email on May 11, 2012 by Robert Lederman, president of the street artists’ organization A.R.T.I.S.T and a plaintiff in the visual artists suit, “The Parks Dept is now violating their entire rule revision by reversing the legal position they stated throughout the Federal lawsuit (that the rules were equally enforced against musicians and performers as well as visual artists).”

Why does the policy reversal matter?

As defendants in the lawsuit, the Parks Department needs to show that they are not targeting particular classes of people or selectively enforcing the new parks rules on vending. If they allow performers to operate in park spaces outside of the same rules that they enforce against visual artists, they will likely be in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. That clause states "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

More info:

"City Backs Down On Artists & Musicians In Washington Square Park"
A Walk in the Park, May 14, 2012, by Geoffrey Croft

"City Reverses Course on Performance Crackdown at Washington Square Park – No More Ticketing and Fining of “Entertainers and Buskers”"
Washington Square Park Blog, May 11, 2012

Musicians Booted from Washington Square Park

New York City Parks Department PEP officers have begun issuing tickets to musicians and other performers who ask for donations in Manhattan’s famed Washington Square Park. The park has been a meeting place for street musicians and their fans since it became a haven for the emerging folk music movement in the 1940s, more than 60 years ago.

For comprehensive coverage of the situation see Geoffrey Croft’s A Walk In the Park blog post “Bloomberg $ Cracks Down On Performers In Washington Square Park Ticket Blitz.” The post includes a dozen links to other articles.

Why now?

Although none of the major news outlets such as the New York Times have acknowledged it, the crackdown appears to be in direct response to street art vendors’ legal suits against the Bloomberg Administration’s new rules on “expressive matter” vending in public parks. The new rules have been in effect since July 2011 when a panel of state appellate judges vacated a temporary restraining order blocking the city from implementing the rules.

During the ongoing suits in both state and federal courts, visual artists have accused the city of selective enforcement of the rules. Ticketing musicians and other performers is likely an attempt to send a message to the courts that this is not true.

What’s different about this new crackdown on artists and musicians?

For the first time in the battle over the new rules, the city is issuing tickets enforcing a new rule that makes it illegal for artists, musicians and performers to operate within fifty foot of monuments (including park features like Washington Square Park’s fountain) and within five foot of park benches.

According to an email distributed on December 7, 2011 by artist Robert Lederman, who is the President of the street artists organization A.R.T.I.S.T. and a plaintiff in the federal court case against the city, “In Washington Square Park, as in many other NYC Parks, 50 feet from a monument alone precludes the entire park from First Amendment activity. The arch, the fountain and all statues and plaques are considered monuments. PEP officers have stated on video that in WSP there is no place for an artist or performer to legally set up, under these new rules.”

So what?

Officials and attorneys representing the New York City Department of Parks have repeatedly stated in both state and federal court that artists who are unable to secure an authorized “green medallion” spot created by the new rules in Central Park, Union Square Park, Battery Park and the High Line can simply decamp to other parks and locations. What the new crackdown against musicians and performers in Washington Square Park suggests is that those city officials and attorneys have been misrepresenting the scope and restrictiveness of the new rules. It should be interesting to see how the judges in those cases (Federal District Court Judge Richard J. Sullivan and Justice Milton A. Tingling, Jr. of the New York State Supreme Court) respond to evidence that they have been misled.

Update:

Community Board 2 will be holding a "Washington Square Park Speak Out" on Monday, December 19th at 6:30pm at NYU's Kimmel Center, 60 WSP South, 8th floor. If you want to email comments, send them to washingtonsquareparkspeakout@gmail.com.

Judge Refuses to Extend Temporary Restraining Order at Zuccotti Park

New York State Supreme Court Judge Michael D. Stallman has refused to extend a Temporary Restraining Order blocking New York City's eviction of Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zucotti Park in Lower Manhattan. In doing so the judge essentially ruled that the  new rules imposed after the arrival of Occupy Wall Street by the parks owners, Brookfield Properties, are "reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions permitted under the First Amendment."

In his decision, Judge Stallman stated: "To the extent that City law prohibits the erection of structures, the use of gas or other combustible materials, and the accumulation of garbage and human waste in public places, enforcement of the law and the owner's rules appears reasonable to permit the owner to maintain its space in a hygienic, safe, and lawful condition, and to prevent it from being liable by the City or others for violations of law, or in tort. It also permits public access by those who live and work in the area who are the intended beneficiaries of this zoning bonus."

See the full text  of the decision here.

 

Update on the Public Space Issues for Occupy Wall Street: Liberty Square

Liberty Square / Zuccotti Park on the morning of Thursday, September 29, 2011. Lunching office workers in the foreground, Occupy Wall Street protesters in the center of the park.

I spoke today with Professor Jerold S. Kayden, Harvard Professor and author of the book “Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience.” Professor Kayden graciously led me through the sometimes arcane business of New York City’s incentive zoning rules and regulations. Here’s what I found out from our conversation and from Professor Kayden’s book.

Zuccotti Park, known as Liberty Square by the Occupy Wall Street protesters, is considered a “special permit plaza.” Technically speaking, unlike previously reported, it’s probably not a “bonus” plaza, where the original developers secured extra floor space at One Liberty Plaza, the fifty four floor skyscraper just to the north of the park. Bonus office space at that building likely was allowed by the creation of the public space around the building itself. Instead the special permit plaza likely came into being in exchange for other zoning concessions authorized by the Department of City Planning.

Regardless, according to Kayden, the park’s owner Brookfield Office Properties likely agreed to provide a “physical place located on private property to which the owner has granted legally binding rights of access and use to members of the public, most often in return for something of value from the city” (Kayden, Privately Owned Public Space, p.21), that “value” in this case being a zoning concession.

So can Brookfield ask the protesters to leave?

No and Yes.

“The Zoning Resolution requires privately owned public spaces to host ‘public use,’ but never expressly defines limits, if any, an owner may impose upon such public use. The Department of City Planning has taken the position that an owner may prescribe ‘reasonable’ rules of conduct. In determining the definition of reasonable, the Department has looked to the rules of conduct applicable in City-owned parks for general guidance.” (Kayden, POPS, p.38.) Note that these are very similar to the kind of “time, place and manner” restrictions that the city is using against artists working in public parks and that are at the heart of artists’ current lawsuit against the Parks Department in the Lederman federal case.

Professor Kayden believes that creating a rule of conduct that says “no political protests” is unlikely to be considered “reasonable” under these terms, but that this is not a First Amendment issue. The park is still privately owned and says Kayden, “in all likelihood, it would be an uphill climb to maintain that Brookfield Office Properties is a governmental actor subject to the full provisions of the First Amendment.” (See American Manufacturers Mutual Insurance Company v. Delores Scott Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40 (1999) for a court ruling on standards for what constitutes “state action” by a private owner.)

However, while Brookfield likely can’t ask Occupy New York to leave Zuccotti Park because they are using the park for a political protest, they may be able to ask them to leave for other reasons. For example, if the park becomes unusable by anyone other than protestors, they could essentially be asked to leave so that others could use the park. Or, if they were creating too much noise, sleeping in the park, or acting in other manners that might block the use of the park by other park goers or community members, these might indeed constitute violations of reasonable rules.

Finally, according to Professor Kayden there is little case law established on what constitutes “reasonable” rules when applied to privately owned public spaces, and certainly none about political protesters using those spaces, so there are no clear guidelines about how a court might rule if action was taken by the park’s owners.

In the end, the situation at Liberty Square may be shaped more by public relation issues than by the legal issues. Neither Brookfield Office Properties, the owners of the public space known as Zuccotti Park, nor the New York Police Department are likely to want to be perceived as initiating a crackdown against protesters that would be watched around the world and could potentially spark even larger protests.

Peter Walsh