Crossing Their Line (The Chicago Picasso Plaza Crime)
Crossing Their Line!
All I want to do is to sit, print and give art away – that is all! Is this simple act too much for the America of today? Of course, I would also like to have my First Amendment right to sell my art in public without the prior restraint of a peddlers license but that is too much for America today in Chicago!
I went downtown to the Chicago Picasso Plaza to meet up with the Critical Mass. Critical Mass is a massive group of bike riders who meet up at the Chicago Picasso Plaza every last Friday of the month at 5-6pm after work to ride bikes around a predetermined route through the City streets, stopping cross traffic as they go. On a mass ride we take over the streets we ride on. The Daley Plaza where we meet should be called Chicago Picasso Plaza. Chicago Picasso Plaza has more of a ring to it. Daley inspires the wrong attitude for a majestic work of art. Daley permits petty authorities to harass speech and art on the plaza and on the streets of Chicago. Picasso is the artist from France who lampooned such petty authorities and bureaucracies with his sculpture. When the pompous “Chicagolites” of Picasso’s day, Daley senior and his functionaries, came to Picasso hoping to bring some culture to Chicago, he gave them this sculpture.
The security guard at the Chicago Picasso Plaza - Daley Center - takes an Interest in Art.
True culture will come to Chicago only when Chicago respects its culture makers – its artists.
All summer I have come down to the Chicago Picasso Plaza to meet up with the Critical Mass. All summer I’ve printed art patches and given away art on patches. Gradually my presence is making headway for our Art Patch Project with the widely flung network of bikers that encompasses the entire metro region. I have never been a problem in anyway. I never blocked anybody from walking or left any mess behind. Most have enjoyed my presence on the Chicago Picasso Plaza. No one has complained of my presence to me. Why would my speech be banned from the Chicago Picasso Plaza? Why would you discourage artists at all around a grand work of art. Art should attract art in a cultured society – in an open society.
Suddenly – you see the photos - out of nowhere, first the security guard, then three officers came to hassle me. What would a bystander think? Many would think I had committed some type of crime. A crime is in progress but I am not the criminal. The most interesting evidence I have of the crime is the photo with the Picasso, the three policemen, the American flag and the security guard still trying to argue his weak case from the edge of the photo. In order to get to the bottom of this “who-done-it” I need to explain to some readers a few things related to art/speech and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (…make no law abridging the freedom of speech…).
At Chicago Picasso Plaza, possibly concerned about the public safety hazard of art on the plaza, the security guard calls back up.
Who am I? I am a thirty year veteran of the community art movement that grew out of the 60’s and 70’s in urban America. I am exploring the state of the artist on the street in Chicago, the center of our nation, a nation that claims to be exporting freedom abroad. I believe the real fight for freedom is right here, in Chicago. I express myself through screen printing with a squeegee and ink on cotton patches.
What is your voice? Your voice in terms of art theory or First Amendment case law is the method by which you communicate your ideas to others. A singer sings, an orator speaks, a painter of oils illustrates with a brush, a mime mimics, a sculptor sculpts, a sax player blows…. Therefore art is speech and the courts hold that art is protected by the First Amendment. Sometimes the court does argue about what is art but it is better that the court make this decision than the policeman on the beat.
The artist is a citizen who polishes their voice. The right to free speech is the most cherished of rights. Artists should be encouraged to express themselves in public in an open society. If society limits the speech of the most polished speakers in public then free speech is greatly damaged and democracy is tarnished. The measure of artistic freedom on the street is a reflection of freedom in society. One is related to the other. To eliminate artists from public spaces removes society’s creative voices from a daily presence and thereby decreases the most polished and motivated examples of free speech in the general public. This must logically have some chilling effect on speech overall. To increase the freedom of artists is to increase the freedom of everyone.
When artists are free to create in public there will be a richer tapestry of creative activity to stimulate the senses and the ideas of passers by. This will be available for all who are aware on a daily basis. The more citizens practicing and polishing their voices, the more vibrant the community discourse. This is what the First Amendment is meant to protect. If you can’t sell your speech in public you must get a different job. Then, you will not be able to speak as often and as effectively as you should be able to. This is why First Amendment case law protects your ability to sell your speech in public as well as your right to give your speech away in public. It protects the vibrancy of social discourse by providing speakers with the right to survive by their speech.
Out spoken Chicago Critical Mass riders dispute the need for police interferance with an artist giving away art.
So why am I giving my art and the art of others away on the Chicago Picasso Plaza? It is well known and accepted by Federal Court judges that an artist who sells his art in public has the same right to this activity as an artist who gives his art away. Federal Court cases stress again and again – there is no difference under the law whether the speaker is paid or they give their speech away. Yet, across this nation cities write laws that limit the selling of art and other speech in public. They are able to do this because the public is not aware of their rights to sell their speech in public. People also don’t understand the value that is lost when artists’ (when all of us) lose this right to sell our speech in public.
The public understands my right to give the art away. So, I give it away as a means of educating the public about our rights which are being violated. By giving my art away, I prove that this act is not disruptive to traffic. Your safety as a pedestrian is the basis the City uses to limit my ability to sell my art in public. When I sell my art they say it is a traffic problem. But when I give it away, in the same space, it is not a traffic problem. It rarely is a traffic problem. It is some other type of problem that the court does not accept as good enough to violate my First Amendment protection. The City is deceitful in court.
How does First Amendment case law protect my right to survive by my art (speech). The First Amendment basically says no branch of government may pass a law abridging our right of free speech. Over the years the writings of federal court judges on cases brought to the court have evolved into the following rules:
a) The government must have a compelling need to write a law (example: the public safety of the pedestrian).
b) They must write a narrow law (example: no selling 20 feet from a crosswalk) that effects speech the least and which is tailored to the compelling need the law is intended to address. Broad laws limiting speech (example: no selling speech in the Loop) are not allowed.
c) Provide an ample alternative as viewed from the speaker’s point of view.
d) Prior Restraints on speech are unconstitutional. A license is a prior restraint on speech for those who are unable or can’t afford to obtain one. This could be due to its cost or the bureaucracy of obtaining it or because it is denied/revoked for any reason such as debts owed the City.
The Chicago Critical Mass begins.
What does Chicago do?
Chicago requires a license that acts as a prior restraint on speech. If you do not have the money or if you owe the City any money or if the City decides it should be revoked, you lose your right to sell your speech in public. The City treats your speech right like a privilege they can deny at will. The City then writes into the license code broad (not narrow) laws that prohibit vast areas of the City from speech/art vendor access. Access is denied based not on traffic needs but on the whims of the Aldermen whose district the prohibited areas are in. No viable alternatives are provided by the City to counter the great limitations it puts on artists’ ability to sell their speech in public.
In short, the City violates every aspect of First Amendment case law when it comes to artists’ right to sell their art in public to survive by their expressive work. This has stunted Chicago’s art market and its public market place of ideas and discourse. The public can’t see what is lost because it is missing. They have no comparison to visualize a different way of life.
The City has no law against giving art away anywhere in the City. The public universally understands giving art away is no crime. It would look very bad to be arresting artists for giving away their art in public. I am again giving art away exploring our speech right to sell art/speech in public. I have selected the same spot where I have printed on every last Friday of the month all summer long. In this spot the setting sun is to my back and a marble seat at my back helps shade the small screen I use to print art on cotton patches.
August 2009 Chicago Critical Mass exits the Loop.
I had been printing for about an hour. Volunteers helped me by passing out our art patches with fliers pinned to them to every Critical Mass cyclist on the Plaza. I am in a conversation about the way Chicago treats its artists with a small group of bicyclists when I see out of the corner of my eye a security guard for the building management approaching. “…and here’s an example of what I am talking about.” I add nodding in the man’s direction.
He peers down at me and asks with a quizzical smile, “Do you have a permit for that?”
“I don’t need a permit to give art away.”
“Well, you can’t do that here.” His tone turns stern.
“Sure I can. I’ve done this all summer long. It is my First Amendment right to give art away in public. What law am I breaking?”
“This is not the public. This is private property.”
“Of course this is public property. Tax payers paid for all of this.”
“This is a private company managing this building. I can get a policeman to tell you to leave if you wish?”
“Yes, get a policeman. I want to know what law I am breaking!”
He went off to find a policeman. I went back to printing and discussing what had just occurred with those around me. One guy suggested that the security guard might not even come back with all the confusion of the Critical Mass gathering.
“Oh-no, he’ll definitely come back” I said with past experiences to support my opinion. “That’s why I have this camera and why you are so valuable as witnesses to what they say and do. You are my best protection.”
“You need a video camera.” another guy said.
Juggler juggles as the August 2009 Chicago Critical Mass moves past.
In a few minutes the security guard was back with not one but three police officers. Artists must be a tough lot in Chicago to need three police as backup to confront one old artist giving away art on the Chicago Picasso Plaza. I shot several documentary photos as I explained I was only giving the art away, that I have a First Amendment right to do so, and I asked again the older officer, who took the lead by talking to me, what law I was breaking. None of the three policemen seemed able to tell me what law I was breaking or if any written rules existed regarding use of the Plaza by the public.
Several of the Critical Mass riders who I had given art-patches to began arguing with the other two officers and the security guard over why they were attacking me for giving away art when there was obviously no reason for them to do so. It began to get heated. I did not want anyone to get arrested but I was happy they dared to speak their minds.
The elder policeman repeated to me that the Chicago Picasso Plaza was run by a private management company that made the rules for the Plaza and all they wanted was for me to move off of the Plaza onto public property. I continued to advance the argument that the Plaza was paid for by public money, that it is public property, that I am fully within my First Amendment rights and that there is no reason they can give for hassling me except they want to shut down my speech activity.
At this point the elder officer revealed new information to me. He said, “If you would just move off the plaza onto the City property which is just across the line running even with the bench you are leaning on everything would be fine. That is not an unreasonable request.”
Critical Mass crossed the Chicago River heading west.
So, they had drawn a line about one foot the other side of where I was sitting. It was their important duty to order me to move a few feet. I tried to imagine the City’s compelling reason for this action. However, the reasons I came up with a federal court would not consider compelling, the need to save face for the security guard or the need to establish the Chicago Picasso Plaza managers’ right to bar legitimate speech activity from their grounds. I was amazed.
I was amazed especially because for two years in a row the same Chicago Picasso Plaza security team claimed to me that their property extended to the curb. Now they say it extends only to the edge of the Plaza furniture. Did a law change? I made a mental note to ask for written documentation on where the Plaza ends and the sidewalk begins at my next opportunity. I suspect the Chicago Picasso Plaza management firm makes up their rules as they go along.
I mulled their request over for a moment. What was the compelling reason to hassle me at all? None I could imagine. Yet, they were offering me an ample alternative – one tile away and I was not ready to sue. “OK,” I shrugged. “I’ll move.”
Beautiful rider makes friends for the Mass by slapping hands with motorists along the way.
This averted a confrontation. The security guard saved face. The three policemen could go back to their real jobs. It dislocated for me a bit. The sun shone on my screen making printing more difficult. So with the help of one of the guys that stuck up for me, we moved a trash can to block the sun and I went back to printing art patches to give away.
The volunteer who had promised to help finally showed up too late to help out as a witness. I eagerly explained what she had just missed. The latest defining case on a city hiding behind a private management firm as an excuse for avoiding the First Amendment is Berger v. City of Seattle and can be found linked to the side panel of my blog or at the bottom of every e-mail I send out weekly. The City can’t delegate its regulatory power to a management company and exempt public space from the rule of law. Lawful speech activity can’t be barred from the Chicago Picasso Plaza by any rules the company makes up. They must follow the First Amendment, have a compelling need, write a narrow law that applies common sense to the need and provide me an ample alternative.
I will blog my mistreatment by these keepers of the the Chicago Picasso Plaza Every opportunity I have. Chicago’s artists owe it to art and to ourselves to liberate the Picasso from the tyrants who sneer at our free speech rights and encapsulate the Picasso in an anti-art atmosphere. One day, after we sue the City of Chicago for our rightful place on the streets and in the parks, we will return to free the Picasso, as well. The Picasso should be one of our symbols of artistic freedom in Chicago and a space where our creative activity is protected.
Jazzy riding as the ride rolls on and the lighting wanes.
The crime being perpetrated on the people of Chicago is the on-going violation of our speech rights across the board, from the Chicago Picasso Plaza management firm’s actions, to the streets and parks where artists are banned from selling their art expressions, to the way Chicago authorities treat all their citizens who protest the war or challenge the status-quo, making up rules as they go and ignoring our rights as they wish. If we are “the land of the free and the brave” we will change this. Please let us know how you can help.
Riding into the settling dusk on Chicago's Southside.
