Arts responses as diverse as New York itself
There is faith—even among those who do not really believe in the power of art—that 9/11-themed art is as essential to our cultural survival as counter-terrorist police, full-body scanners and TSA pat-downs are to our physical survival; that to endure as a nation we must collectively bare not only our bodies but also our souls; and that in order to preserve our freedom and to persevere we must always remember—“Never forget!” Artworks have been enlisted for this higher, though improbable cause.
Across New York City, there were no shortage of artworks, exhibitions and memorials observing the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. And although many people agree that those events require art, they’ve differed on what forms those artworks should take and what purposes they should serve.
Many photography and video exhibitions—at the International Center of Photography, the New-York Historical Society, the Museum of the City of New York and Pace University, among other venues—focus on the noble cause of documentation. But I’m anticipating MoMA PS1’s moody September 11 (through Jan. 9, 2012), a group show in which the only work made in direct response to the terrorist attacks is “Ground Zero” (2003), Ellsworth Kelly’s proposed memorial: a trapezoidal mound of bright green grass.
Artistic responses to 9/11 vary widely, from the Guggenheim Museum’s recent screenings of Ten Years of Terror, a film featuring reflections on violence by Noam Chomsky, among others, to the controversial graphic coloring novel We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids’ Book of Freedom—in which children can color in pictures of the smoldering Twin Towers and a Navy SEAL shooting Osama bin Laden, who cowers behind a Muslim woman.
Other works inspired by children include Faith Ringgold’s 9/11 Peace Story Quilt, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Jan. 22, 2012). Based on children’s drawings, Ringgold’s three-panel quilt gathers together feel-good words and images to promote peace and multicultural sensitivity. In a similar vein, D.C. Moore Gallery’s 9/11: Through Young Eyes (through Oct.8) has mounted artworks made by 13-year-olds and inspired by the collages of Jacob Lawrence. These exhibits reveal that our hearts are in the right place, but unfortunately fall into the realm not of art but of art therapy and community outreach.
One of the first 9/11 memorials to be erected was Eric Fischl’s bronze figurative sculpture “Tumbling Woman” (2002). I’m sure Fischl meant well. But his depiction of an upside-down, falling nude (who looked like she had just hit the pavement) was deemed explicitly literal and, therefore, offensive. “Tumbling Woman” was quickly draped and removed from its site in the lower concourse of Rockefeller Center. Fischl’s lack of imagination and transformation closed down so tightly and illustratively on his subject that it brought the relationship between artwork and viewer to an uncomfortable dead end.
But Fischl is not the only artist who is perhaps too close to his subject. Other 9/11 artworks and memorials are so literal and rely so heavily on the inherent weight of their subject to carry the art that they risk exploiting individual loss; they risk becoming mere physical manifestations of personal grief rather than contemplative, commemorative public artworks with lasting, universal appeal.
When I first visited ground zero in 2001, people were collecting dust from the rubble. Covered in the white ash they scooped up from sidewalks and storefronts, they looked like ghosts scavenging the ruins. Although 9/11 dust contains human remains, artists continue to be inspired by the ashes. In the exhibition 9/11 Elegies: 2001-2011 (through Sept. 25), St. Peter’s Church is exhibiting 12 Ejay Weiss paintings containing dust from ground zero. Also comprising 9/11 ash is Xu Bing’s Buddhist installation “Where Does the Dust Itself Collect” (2004), at the Spinning Wheel (through Oct. 9).
Artists who work with 9/11 debris, such as Weiss, Xu and Elena del Rivero—whose New Museum installation [Swi:t] Home: A Chant (through Sept. 26) comprises thousands of pieces of paper that flew into her studio across from the World Trade Center—bring us tangible relics. Through the allure of artifacts, they trigger our desire to revisit and reconnect to the tragedy. This impulse is why nearly 150 9/11 memorials throughout New York and New Jersey already do or will incorporate actual steel beams from the World Trade Center ruins—battleground-relics-turned-symbols that people can actually touch.
And our desire to bond with 9/11 artifacts as a natural process of grieving is acknowledged almost exclusively in ground zero’s memorial “Reflecting Absence,” whose two WTC-footprint waterfalls and surrounding bronze panels, inscribed with victims’ names, are unmistakably direct in their symbolism; and at the World Trade Center Memorial Museum (scheduled to open in 2012), which will incorporate a destroyed 9/11 fire truck; a piece of steel with a Bible fused to it; 7-story-tall steel “Tridents” from the North Tower’s façade; and the “WTC Cross,” a 17-foot-tall icon of hope discovered in the “Pile.” Also on view will be walls of photos of the 1993 and 2001 victims, supplemented by an extensive archive of victims personal mementos and videos of shared remembrances by their families and friends.
In its preopening state, the tree-filled plaza and waterfalls of “Reflecting Absence” are minimal and solemn. Crowded, though, by tourists and mourners (some of whom have already complained that as victims’ family members they shouldn’t have to grieve with strangers), the memorial will undoubtedly lose some of its contemplative appeal, especially when it has to compete with a business complex, transit hub and commercial mall.
Obviously, some of these works send shivers up your spine. But if 9/11-themed artworks are to be successful over time, they must do more than trigger personal grieving about specific events. They must explore themes of heroism, suffering, sacrifice and rebirth and encourage acts of reflection and empathy. They must poetically transform and transcend their subject. “Never forget” is a tall order—especially when much 9/11 art, so determinedly fixed on the present, neglects the unforeseeable future.
Bronx Museum: “Muntadas: Information >> Space >> Control.” Sept. 29–Jan. 16, 2012. “Alexandre Arrechea: Orange Tree.” Ends Jan. 1, 2012. “Urban Archives: Emilio Sanchez in the Bronx.” Ends Jan. 1, 2012. “Acconci Studio: Lobby-For-The-Time-Being.” Ongoing, 1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx, 718-681-6000, bronxmuseum.org.
MoMA PS1: “Francis Alys: A Story of Deception.” Ends Sept. 12. “September 11.” Ends Jan. 9, 2012, 22-25 Jackson Ave., Queens, 718-784-2084, ps1.org.
The Morgan Library & Museum: “Charles Dickens at 200.” Sept. 23–Feb. 12, 2012. “David, Delacroix, & Revolutionary France: Drawings from the Louvre.” Sept. 23–Dec. 31. “Xu Bing: The Living Word.” Ends Oct. 2. “Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts & Other Artists’ Enumerations from the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.” Ends Oct. 2. “Ingres at the Morgan.” Ends Nov. 27, 225 Madison Ave., 212-685-0008, themorgan.org.
Society of Illustrators: “Rolling Stone & the Art of the Record Review.” Ends Oct. 22, 128 E. 63rd St., 212-838-2560, societyillustrators.org.
National Academy Museum: “Will Barnet at 100.” Opens Sept. 16, 1083 5th Ave., 212-369-4880, nationalacademy.org.
New Museum: “Ostalgia.” Ends Sept. 25. “Isa Genzken: Rose II (2007).” Ends Nov. 13, 235 Bowery, 212-219-1222, newmuseum.org.
Rubin Museum of Art: “Once Upon Many Times.” Sept. 16–Jan. 30, 2012. “Quentin Roosevelt’s China.” Ends Sept. 19. “Pilgrimage & Faith.” Ends Oct. 24. “Human Currents.” Ends Nov. 13, 150 W. 17th St., 212-620-5000, rmanyc.org.
American Museum of Natural History: “Picturing Science: Museum Scientists & Imaging Technologies.” Ends June 24, 2012, Central Park West at W. 79th St., 212-769-5100, amnh.org.
Brooklyn Museum: “Raw/Cooked: Kristof Wickman.” Sept. 16–Nov. 27. “Sanford Biggers: Sweet Funk—An Introspective.” Opens Sept. 23. “Eva Hesse Spectres 1960.” Opens Sept. 16, 200 Eastern Pkwy., Brooklyn, 718-628-5000, brooklynmuseum.org.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Infinite Jest: Caricature & Satire from Leonardo to Levine.” Opened Sept. 13. “Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures.” Opens Sept. 20. “Wonder of the Age”: Master Painters of India, 1100–1900.” Opens Sept. 28, 1000 5th Ave., 212- 535-7710, metmuseum.org.
Museum of Arts & Design: “Picasso to Koons: Artist as Jeweler.” Opens Sept. 20. “Otherworldly: Optical Delusions & Small Realities.” Ends Sept. 18. “Stephen Burks: Are You A Hybrid?” Ends Oct. 2, 2 Columbus Cir., 212-299-7777, madmuseum.org.
Museum of Jewish Heritage: “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race.” Opens Sept. 15, 36 Battery Pl., 646-437-4200, mjhnyc.org.
Museum of Modern Art: “de Kooning: A Retrospective.” Opens Sept. 18. “New Photography 2011.” Opens Sept. 28. “I Am Still Alive: Politics & Everyday Life in Contemporary Drawing.” Ends Sept. 19. “Young Architects Program 2011.” Ends Sept. 19. “Projects 95: Runa Islam.” Ends Sept. 19, 11 W. 53rd St., 212-708-9400, moma.org.
Museum of the Moving Image: “Jim Campbell: Exploded View (Commuters).” Ends Nov. 6. “Christopher Baker: Hello World! or: How I Learned to Stop Listening & Love the Noise.” Ends Nov. 6, 36-01 35th Ave., Queens, 718-784-0077, movingimage.us.
Studio Museum: “Spiral: Perspectives on an African American Art Collective.” Ends Oct. 23. “Evidence of Accumulation.” Ends Oct. 23. “Lyle Ashton Harris: Self/Portrait.” Ends Oct. 23. “as it was, as it could be.” Ends Oct. 23. “Harlem Postcards.” Ends Oct. 23. “StudioSound.” Ends Oct. 23, 144 W. 125th St., studiomuseum.org.
National Academy Museum: “Will Barnet at 100.” Opens Sept. 16, 1083 5th Ave., 212-369-4880, nationalacademy.org.
Wave Hill: “Caitlin Parker.” Sept. 13–Oct. 16. “The Friendly Falcons & Their Friend the Snake.” Ends Oct. 16. “Hive Culture: Captivated by the Honeybee.” Ends Dec. 1, W. 249th St. at Independence Ave., Bronx, 718-549-3200, wavehill.org.
