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From Exit Art In New York City To The Santa Fe Art Institute, Artists And Arts Organizations Create And Foster Art About September 11; Work To Heal Wounded SpiritsSource: Arts Wire CURRENT, a project of Arts Wire, a program of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) -- http://www.nyfa.orgIn New York City and across the country, September 11, 2001 -- the appalling destruction, the terror, the government response, the lingering and pervasive numbness -- have permeated the work of artists. And the arts community has come together in a shared reaction to incomprehensible events. Displaying over 1,000 works from a global call for responses to the tragedy, last weekend the exhibition REACTIONS opened at Exit Art in New York City. "My name is Marc and my friend Joey worked on the 105th Floor of No 1 World Trade Center. After September 11, I put his 'missing flyer' all over the streets of this changed city, choosing my spots as if I were painting graffiti, looking for the best light, the easiest places to see my friend's face," begins Marc Whalen's contribution to Reactions. The work is about Joey, who he met at age 5, whose father, a Vietnam Vet and a retired FDNY fire fighter helped him learn to ride a bike. "I have cried so much that I have become empty inside. My childhood hero has been stolen from me, and I will miss him forever," the text concludes. Below it is a picture of Joey as a child, standing beside an American Flag, and the dates: 1974-2001. The face of the statute of liberty dominates Desiree Alvarez's SCREAMING LIBERTY -- her mouth open, screaming; her jagged broken teeth, the skyline of New York. For REACTIONS, Exit Art invited a worldwide public to respond to how the attacks on the United States have affected their lives. Conceived by Papo Colo and Jeanette Ingberman and coordinated by Jodi Hanel and Bibi Mart, the project sent out over 10,000 emailed invitations and over 8,000 mailed letters. The invitation was also posted as an open call on their website. They asked people to share how the events altered their behavior -- toward others, their city, their daily life -- and now in the aftermath, how these events and all that has happened since the attacks, have changed their perception of reality and the world around them. The only requirement was that the submission had to be something that would fit on an 8 1/2 x 11" piece of paper. "We sensed that people had a need to communicate their feelings and to also see how others are reacting to these events. Therefore we developed a project called REACTIONS, a collective exhibition that will present an international, public response to how the events have changed public and private behaviors," they state. Poetry, musical scores, texts, letters, drawings, paintings, collages, photographs, and many other forms of response were received from children as young as 7 years old and from people all over the world including from Asia, the Middle East, Europe and South America. Every response is exhibited.
"I saw you Empire State Building writes Edwin Torres to begin a page long poem. In Jem Cohen and Kim Maley's BOTH WANT WAR, BOTH UNELECTED The top halves of the faces of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden (side by side grainy black and white newsprint quality photos) are divided from the bottom halves of their faces by the words "BOTH WANT WAR, BOTH UNELECTED." Also included, among many, many others are works by Sara Abad, Andrea Arroyo, Irene Miller Abramowitz, Garnet Abrams, Steven Dana, Larry S. Frankel, Robert Gober, Melissa Gould, Teresa Hackett, Barbara Hammer, Angela La Rosa Joplin, Richard Kostelanetz, Antoinette LaFarge, Marianna La Rosa, Tom Marioni, Linda Montano, Christy Rupp, Carolee Schneemann, Darryl Sapien, William Wegman, and Mie Yim. On a page divided by two hearts -- red white and blue, the top one torn in half, the bottom one inverted, -- Alex Steinweiss has written "Stop Hate" in white on a field of black. "IN MY HAND, WAS A LAMINATED SHEAF OF MESSAGES FROM VANDERBILT: 'POEMS AND RUMINATIONS ON THE EVENTS OF SEPT. 11. TO THE VICTIMS, THEIR FAMILIES AND FRIENDS, ALL RESCUE PERSONNEL AND THE CITY OF NEW YORK. FROM VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE'" -- Kate Daniels At the Santa Fe Art Institute -- in a program initiated by New Yorker, Diane R. Karp, who on September 11 had been driving across the country to begin her new job as the Institute's Director -- about 80 artists from New York City are making art in quiet residence spaces with studios in the warm, dry desert/mountain terrain of New Mexico. "Signs of death were everywhere," the NEW YORK TIMES quotes artist Margaret Evangeline, who is currently in residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute, as saying. "I was seeing these heartbreaking funeral processions every day. Even two months later, the smell in my studio was so strong it made me sick. I couldn't work. I was so fragmented that I couldn't focus on anything. When I heard about this program, I started to cry because that was just what I needed." The Times reports that during her residency, in arrangement with the New Mexico Air National Guard, Evangeline, who paints on aluminum sheets which she shapes and grounds, has been taking these aluminum plates to remote fields and firing at them with a variety of weapons. In November 2001, poet Kate Daniels, a professor of English at Vanderbilt University, brought her poetry and poetry by her colleagues and students to New York City and placed it on a shrine of posters, flowers, candles and photographs on the sidewalk in front of St. Paul's Chapel on Broadway. Daniels, is the author of FOUR TESTIMONIES: POEMS (Louisiana State University Press, 1998) and also the editor of OUT OF SILENCE : SELECTED POEMS BY MURIEL RUKEYSER. (Triquarterly Books, 1994) Published in IMAGE, A JOURNAL OF THE ARTS AND RELIGION, her Poem "After Reading Reznikoff" begins
"When I think of those mothers giving up Daniels lived in New York for several years in her 20's, and she thought about taking one of her poems to the City on a planned trip in November. "As the time neared, the gesture seemed unnecessarily solipsistic, too lonely. And so I decided to ask my students and some of my colleagues to participate," she writes. "On the sidewalk in front of St. Paul's Chapel on Broadway, I found a huge shrine of posters, flowers, candles and photographs from around the world. In my hand, was a laminated sheaf of messages from Vanderbilt: "Poems and Ruminations on the events of Sept. 11. To the victims, their families and friends, all rescue personnel and the City of New York. From Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. Almost immediately, I found a large banner from a daycare in Knoxville, covered with the tiny handprints of dozens of children who had sent a message of support even though they could not yet read or write. I decided to post Vanderbilt's contribution beside it," she writes in the VANDERBILT REGISTER. Among the works was Jennifer Casale's "Brushing My Teeth at 2 a.m. after Sept. 11" which begins:
"Silent -- we are silent, eyes down Sources/resources:
EXIT ART -- http://www.exitart.org
Stephen Kinzer
Kate Daniels
Kate Daniels Arts Wire (TM) is a program of the New York Foundation for the Arts. Arts Wire CURRENT is a project of Arts Wire, a national computer-based network serving the arts community. Arts Wire CURRENT features news updates on social, economic, philosophical, and political issues affecting the arts and culture. Your contributions are invited. Contact Judy Malloy, Editor. To encourage the exchange of arts information and perspectives, Arts Wire CURRENT contents are not copyrighted unless specifically stated. We ask that you cite Arts Wire CURRENT as well as Arts Wire's url (http://www.artswire.org) when reprinting material. In addition, Arts Wire is very interested in documenting the use of material from Arts Wire CURRENT in other newsletters, publications and on online networks. Please send a copy to the editor at the address above.
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