Today the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art will join artists, critics, art dealers and the ACLU in appealling a controversial Federal Court ruling. Lederman v. City of New York 94 Civ.
Artists are repeatedly handcuffed and arrested.
Their original paintings, photographs and prints are confiscated. While the City has made hundreds of arrests, and continues to make them on a daily basis, none of the artists have been brought to trial in Criminal Court or convicted of a crime. Every case is eventually dismissed. The confiscated art is sold at a monthly Police Department forfeiture auction or destroyed, often before the cases are dismissed in court. Since 1982 New York City's vending ordinance has specifically exempted other constitutionally protected forms of expression such as books, magazines and baseball cards, from the licensing requirement, based on the First Amendment.