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Robert Lederman 1
| 2 | New
York City
You
have no doubt seen on TV Christo and Jeanne Claude's latest spectacle
"The Gates" -- it is hard not to be impressed. Maybe
you heard they were insulted by Letterman's invitation to the
Late Show. Do not dismiss this pair as befuddled, aging over-achievers;
they're paving the way to steal all our space.
New York City
airs its dirty, pretty laundry in the public space of Central
Park
Bloomberg Park Scandal
by Robert Lederman, February
2005
How big of a hypocrite are
Mike Bloomberg and the Central Park Conservancy (CPC), the elitist
sponsors of Christo's 23 mile long art installation, The Gates?
The Central Park Conservancy
now operates at least 11 vending stands (six fixed stands and
five mobile vending vans) in Central Park from which it is vending
Christo tee-shirts, watches, baseball caps, postcards, posters
and cheap reproductions. To verify this you can call Linda Blumberg,
CPC coordinator for the Christo vending extravaganza at 212 310-6658.
Why is this significant?
It was the Central Park Conservancy
which created the Parks Department artist-permit in 1998, one
week after Mayor Giuliani turned over operation of the park to
the CPC. They attempted to ban every NYC artists' free expression
from all NYC parks based on the idea that street artists "commercialize"
parks.
Mike Bloomberg is a leading
member of the CPC and lives right across the street from the
Park just a block from where hundreds of artists were arrested.
Bloomberg is also a leading Christo collector as are many members
of the CPC.
The first bill Mike Bloomberg
proposed as Mayor in 2002 was Intro # 160, an artist- permit.
If passed this would have recreated the exact same artist-permit
seven different courts had previously struck down as illegal
and Unconstitutional in Lederman et al v Giuliani. When it failed
in 2003, Bloomberg reintroduced it as Intro #48.
For his entire time in public
office Mike Bloomberg has continued to wage a vicious war against
street artists that was started by Mayor Giuliani and the CPC,
including daily illegal enforcement, daily harassment, false
arrests and ongoing efforts to strip away the legal rights we
won in the course of ten years of legal struggle.
Now it comes out that Bloomberg's
beloved group of billionaire real estate developers, The Central
Park Conservancy, didn't really object to art being vended in
the Park. They just wanted to take over the art vending action
in Central Park for themselves.
Why not? They already get a
sizeable cut of the profits from every stale pretzel and soggy
hotdog sold in Central Park and they charge corporations like
Best Buy and Sony a cool million bucks to rent the Park for a
one night concert. No wonder Bloomberg wouldn't let an anti GOP
rally take place in the Park. They didn't pay off the right people
with a million dollar "donation."
The Mayor claims Christo is
paying for the entire Gates travesty himself. Ask Mayor Bloomberg
who is paying for the hundreds of NYPD officers "guarding"
Christo's precious gates round the clock. Are we expecting an
Al Queda attack on the saffron- colored monstrosity or is making
Central Park look like an occupied country just part of the corporate
look Mike Bloomberg is bringing to NYC.
For the full story on NYC street
artists including the rulings in our lawsuits, press clippings
and articles analyzing Bloomberg's latest efforts to destroy
free speech see:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nycstreetartists/
Robert Lederman, President
of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics)
artistpres@comcast.net 201 896-1686
Bloomberg's ConJob: The
Gates
By Robert Lederman
As the media slobbers over
Christo's 23 mile long art installation in Central Park consider
some facts that are being left out of the media coverage:
1. The Mayor claims Christo
is funding the 21 million dollar cost of this project himself.
Is he really that rich? Hardly. The reality is that the funding
comes from the sale of preliminary sketches of the work, sold
to exceptionally wealthy people like Mike Bloomberg who is a
longtime Christo collector. Bloomberg and other super-wealthy
members of the Central Park Conservancy (David Rockefeller, Chase
Bank and all the top real estate developers) gave Christo a permit
to install the work and bought the sketches at an undisclosed
price in order to fund the project. In other words, the corporate
sponsors who funded the project and gave it permission are doing
so in order to benefit themselves, to increase the value of their
own private art collections and to enhance their own social standing
and prestige as "art collectors.'
2. Bloomberg and the Central
Park Conservancy (CPC) are the exact same people who got Giuliani
to create the Central Park artist-permit in 1998, who ordered
the arrests of hundreds of artists, who appealed the rulings
finding their permit illegal to seven different courts and who
after losing the case tried to recreate the exact same permit
by introducing Intro #160 as soon as Bloomberg was elected Mayor.
What was their justification for getting rid of street artists?
According to the CPC, Bloomberg and Park Commissioners we "congest"
the Park and "commercialize" it. But isn't that exactly
what Bloomberg-Christo are doing with The Gates?
3. Bloomberg and the CPC denied
a permit to protestors at the time of the GOP convention claiming
that a protest with 500,000 attendees would damage the Park.
Few seemed to notice that the CPC had previously given permits
to corporations like Disney, SONY and Best Buy for concerts with
more than a million attendees, concerts that the CPC got a million
dollar "donation" each time for allowing. Then they
give Christo a permit to install 7,000 "gates" along
23 miles of park path and announce that they expect millions
of people to come to the park to view it. In other words, if
people come to the Park to engage in political speech it damages
the Park but if they come to view corporate-sponsored art or
attend a concert approved by Bloomberg and his wealthiest friends
that's great.
4. Gates equal Kiosks?
Why would Bloomberg and the
CPC want to introduce the idea of 7,000 giant metal gates installed
in Central Park? Is there an agenda that has nothing to do with
art? Because it desensitizes people to what's coming next, metal
advertising kiosks all over City streets and in Parks. Christo's
art project just happens to set the stage for the Street Furniture
Initiative (SFI), a law proposed by Mike Bloomberg personally
and passed by the City Council in 2004. In March Bloomberg will
assign the contract for the installation of 4,000 sidewalk advertising
billboards. For more than 20 years the CPC opposed The Gates,
claiming it would damage the Park and deface it. Then, as Bloomberg
proposed the SFI, they enthusiastically reversed themselves and
gave a permit for The Gates. If you think it's all about art
you are missing the real story of this cultural fiasco. It's
all about advertising dollars, repressing freedom of speech and
privatizing public space on behalf of the elite. Each gate is
far bigger than each kiosk will be. How can you claim the kiosks
will damage the Park or obstruct the sidewalk after you claimed
the Gates were the seventh wonder of the world and got millions
of people and the entire media to act as if they were a great
blessing to NYC? Bloomberg is setting up the entire city. The
"Gates" are the threshold for the end of all public
space.
Robert Lederman
Christo threatens artist arrests
This Christo/Central Park Conservancy/Bloomberg
fiasco is taking on some amazing twists.
Today, 2/17/05, a representative
of Christo's German publisher informed street artists, photographers
and art vendors around Central Park that they would be subject
to arrest for selling any images of The Gates. I got the number
of this person, Dr. Fils, and had a lengthy talk with him.
Christo's publisher claims
a vast new degree of copyright and trademark protection. They
claim they will prosecute anyone who sells their own original
photos of The Gates; who makes and sells a drawing of The Gates
or who even uses the words, The Gates, without their permission.
They claim to have copyrighted the words, The Gates. They also
claim to have an agreement with the media that media sources
may only use news photos of the gates for the period the installation
is up. That after that the media will only be
allowed to use "official" photos of The Gates.
They also claim that all of
Central Park is now "private property." Talk about
privatization! Be sure to thank Christo, Bloomscrooge and the
CPC. -- Lederman
One of Christo and Jeanne Claude's
previous enterprises was to wrap the Reichstag. I don't know
if this is on private property or not.
It is hard to parody assholes
who have so thoroughly parodied themselves. They claim to be
making no political commentary and only to be creating grand,
sweeping, ephemeral art.
Nonetheless, this is all a
parody.
See The
Crackers | The
Somerville Gates |
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
