Years ago, in the early days of television, there was a show called What’s My Line? that appeared on Sundays. In it a panel of celebrities would need to guess a contestant’s usually unorthodox profession by asking pertinent questions.
New York painter Andy Golub would have made a great contestant. Golub paints nudes for a living, although not in the conventional sense. He doesn’t make pictures of nudes; instead he paints designs directly on the living and breathing flesh of females willing to bare it all in public, and he plies his craft in plain view of onlookers.
Or at least he did until this past July, when he was arrested for misdemeanor public lewdness while working on two nude human canvases in Times Square.
Believing that the city was infringing on his First Amendment right to free self-expression, Golub hired civil rights attorney Ron Kuby, who was able to hammer out a deal with city officials. Under the arrangement Golub can still “create” in public, but not below the belt until after dark. When the sun goes down, so can the subject’s pants. As for their upper endowments, his female models are free to let it all hang out all day long.
Kuby is quoted by the New York Post as saying of the agreement:
It's a compromise that is allowing Andy to paint, and the police to do more important things—although less fun.
Under New York City law, full public nudity is allowed, so long as it is part of a play, performance, exhibition, or show. However, city officials have the discretion to set “time, place and manner restrictions” on public nudity. For example, they are authorized to ban nude public demonstrations when young children are present.
Interestingly, the Occupy Wall Street sit-in at Zuccotti Park has been a goldmine for Golub. The Post reports that “paint-thirsty protesters are stripping for his brush left and right.”
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