Artist arrested

Joe Mangrum calls it art and freedom of expression. Section 594 of the California Penal Code calls it vandalism and a punishable misdemeanor.

The law had the final say last Thursday afternoon outside the Cesar Chavez Student Center as Mangrum, a 26-year-old artist, was arrested for painting a mural on the ground of Malcolm X Plaza.

Mangrum, whose sculpture is currently on display in the art gallery on the second floor of the student center, said he was simply exercising his right to free expression. Campus officials had a different interpretation.

"Obviously you can't come out and deface or mark up property that doesn't belong to you," said Lt. Steve McClain of the University Police Department. "Generally when you want to do something like that out there, you have to get a permit."

Mangrum, an environmental artist who moved to San Francisco in February, did not have a permit and said he couldn't fathom why he would need one.

"It's not like I was spray-painting racial epitaphs or anything," said Mangrum. "They (UPD) came up and asked me if I had permission and I said 'No, why? I'm just speaking my mind like all these other people out here.'"

Mangrum was also using organic watercolor paints, which he said pose no environmental hazards and wash away with ease.

"I even ate some paint right in front of the cop," he said. "But, according to McClain, the paint's makeup is an irrelevant factor in the eyes of the law.

"The penal code doesn't specify that it's all right if the paint is washable or biodegradable," he said. "The point is, you need permission to do that."

San Francisco attorney Jim Wagstaffe, who specializes in First Amendment law, said Mangrum's only defense would be if the arrest were made for the expression of the work and not the act itself.

"The First Amendment does not present a defense for breaking the law," Wagstaffe said. "If he could demonstrate that the aim was at the expressive quality of his art and was being treated differently than others, then he would have a case."

After learning Mangrum did not have a permit, the officer gave him the option to stop painting. Mangrum continued.

He was then cuffed, taken into custody and questioned by UPD for approximately three hours before being released with a citation for vandalism.

Raymond Lee, the student center's fiscal manager, said he tried to convince Mangrum to avoid the confrontation, but to no avail.

"He just refused," Lee said. "He said as an artist he had to push people to their outermost boundaries, or something like that."

Mangrum said he had no choice but to hold his ground.

"They were up against a wall because they didn't really want to arrest me, and I was up against a wall because I didn't want to submit," he said.

"He's a talented guy who wanted to make a point," said McClain. "He knew what the consequences would be, but decided to do what he felt he had to do."

Mangrum's piece on exhibit in the art gallery, entitled "Hypothesis 1995," features five circular structures composed of natural flora and objects such as spark plugs and computer chips. He said his painting Thursday was simply an extension of that piece.

"I think of my work as very time and sight-specific," he said. "And that's sort of my idea, to have it just spreading from its epicenter."

But Mangrum, who said he graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1991, won't deny his curiosity with testing the boundaries of First Amendment rights. And he has the rap sheet to prove it.

A week before his arrest at SF State, Mangrum was arrested at UC Berkeley on similar charges after he refused to stop painting on the ground in Sproul Plaza. In November of last year, Mangrum came to blows with the city of Laguna Beach over a colorful swirl of flowers, branches and berries that he meticulously assembled on the sand.

The city of Laguna Beach told Mangrum he would have to obtain a permit and a one million-dollar liability insurance policy to keep his art work on the beach.. He complained to the city council, but was not granted permission.

Mangrum said he was also arrested in St. Louis for failure to comply after arranging a circle of rocks across the highway from a new strip mall built on the site where a forest had formerly stood.

"I wanted to remind people of the circle of life," he said. "They (the police) wanted me to take it apart, but I wouldn't."

And Mangrum said he can't promise he won't attempt to make his point on the SF State campus again either.

"It's a public space -- this is an institution of learning and I think there's a lot to be learned," he said.

[ Golden Gater Online October 3, 1995 ]

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