Softcover, 144 pages, 5.9 (w) × 8.6 (h) inches
Cabinet Books, 2024

A few sample images from the book are available here.

If after buying this book, you wanted to then sell it on the streets of New York City, you could do so on almost any block without obtaining a vending license from the authorities. That is because words are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, and freedom of speech is deemed more important than regulating pedestrian congestion, the city’s rationale for requiring vending licenses for almost every form of street commerce.

But until 1995, if you wanted to sell, say, a painting of the cover of this book, you would have been required to obtain a vending license. That was the year in which a group of New York artists who wanted to sell their work on the street filed a federal suit against the city claiming that the visual arts are also a form of speech—and therefore no less protected under the First Amendment than words. Their success led the city to allow sales of paintings, photography, sculpture, and prints on the street. But what qualifies as a painting? A second lawsuit, filed in 2004 by two graffiti artists who had been prevented from selling their painted T-shirts and hats on the street, forced the courts to address this question. Were these artists selling clothing that happened to have art on it, or paintings that happened to be on an unconventional material?

The first volume in Cabinet’s “Art before the Law” series, Permitting Art presents the judges’ opinions in the two landmark cases, as well as an in-depth essay by legal scholar Brian Soucek that guides the reader through the complex arguments mobilized in these encounters between aesthetics and jurisprudence.