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SIX MONTHS AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, ARTISTS MAKE ART IN THE AFTERMATH OF DISASTER -- ILLUMINATING THE NIGHT, EXPRESSING DIVERSE VISIONS, REFLECTING AND NARRATING THE HOPES AND FEARS OF INDIVIDUALS AND COMMUNITIESSource: Arts Wire CURRENT, a project of Arts Wire, a program of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) -- http://www.nyfa.orgNEW YORK CITY, NY -- On the morning of September 11, 2001, two hijacked planes flew directly into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. In the heat of the ensuing massive fire, the towers crumpled. Over 3,000 people died. Among the arts community dead were artist Michael Richards, writer David Angell, photographer Berry Berenson, and former ballet dancer Sonia Morales Puopolo. Located at 5 World Trade Center, the office of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, (LMCC) one of Manhattan's largest and oldest arts councils, was destroyed, and all their work was lost. Michael Richards, a Jamaican-born sculptor, had been an artist in residence in LMCC's World Views, a program which gave artists windowed studio space in Tower One of the World Trade Center. Richards, who had a space on the 92nd floor, was working in his studio, when the tower was attacked. Michael Richards' powerful work, which examines justice and injustice in troubled times, remains an enduring symbol to bravery and endurance. In TAR BABY VS. ST. SEBASTIAN, (1999) he reacts to the history of the Tuskegee Airmen, the heroic World War II air force pilots at whose alma mater black men were used for live experiments on syphilis. The sculpture, which echoes Renaissance depictions of Saint Sebastian pierced with arrows, consists of the artist's cast body, in the uniform of the airmen -- brutally pierced with fighter planes. "While Michael's untimely death is a grave tragedy to us all, his life and work will be preserved by museums and galleries, and treasured by friends, family and new viewers, and recorded in the history of American art for generations to come," Christine Kim, Assistant Curator, The Studio Museum in Harlem and Franklin Sirmans, Independent Curator and Critic, wrote in a joint statement. The World Trade Center studios, where many artists were working in the World Views residency program, were all destroyed. At the time of the attack, the artists in the program -- many of whom lost all their work -- were Simon Aldridge, Monika Bravo, Naomi Ben-Shahar, Laurie Halsey Brown, Justine Cooper, Lucky Debellevue, Carola Dertnig, Mahmoud Hamadani, Kara Hammond, Jeff Konigsberg, Motonobu Kurokawa, Geraldine Lau, Nathan See, and Hyungsub Shin. In addition, several artists, including writer Jeff Byles and the Ocean Earth collaborative, were working on special projects in the WTC. Mahmoud Hamadani, whose work encompasses richly detailed abstract ink on paper drawings, was working on a large scale installation. Utilizing the dynamics of light and shadow which pervade his drawings, the installation would have given participants the feeling of walking into his drawings. Because this work incorporated his drawings from many years, he lost over a hundred drawings as well as the installation he was working on. Almost on a daily basis he remembers small things about the lost drawings, In particular, he thinks about one drawing he did two or three days before the Towers were destroyed, he told Arts Wire last October. "It was a lighthearted drawing. In a moment of restlessness, I had poured some ink and was playing with the ink on paper. The next day when I looked at it, I really loved it. Now it is impossible to recreate." ILLUMINATING THE NIGHT Illuminating the night -- from March 11, the 6 month anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, until April 13 -- two immense vertical beams of light now rise into the sky from dusk to dawn. In a symbolic recreation of the lost towers of the World Trade Center, these columns of light not only evoke the memory of lost lives and symbolically restore the devastatingly altered New York City skyline but also celebrate the spirit of all New Yorkers who are working to rebuild and renew their city. The work of architects John Bennett and Gustavo Bonevardi of PROUN Space Studio, of artists Julian LaVerdiere and Paul Myoda, of architect Richard Nash Gould, and of lighting designer Paul Marantz -- with production and support provided by two non-profit cultural institutions The Municipal Art Society and Creative Time, with the assistance of Battery Park City Authority -- TRIBUTE AND LIGHT is formed from two banks of 44 searchlights. "It's hard to backtrack and remember exactly how we had the idea to build something out of light," Gustavo Bonevardi writes on SLATE. "My partner, John Bennett, and I were not the only ones who had it; as the project moved forward, we worked with collaborators, Richard Nash Gould, Julian LaVerdiere, and Paul Myoda, who had nearly the same idea at almost the same time. I think it's because we had all been staring at the towers for so many hours that day. The after-image was practically burned in our retinas. So the idea of trying to evoke what was lost was almost self-evident. In our minds' eye, the image was as clear as the towers themselves had been the day before. " "ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, THE NEW YORK CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT HELPED SAVE THE LIVES OF 25,000 CIVILIANS. ON THE SAME DAY, THE FDNY LOST 343 OF ITS MEMBERS. THESE NUMBERS ATTEST BOTH TO THE MAGNITUDE OF LOSS ON THIS ONE DAY AND TO THE SKILLS AND VALOR OF THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO SERVE IN THE FDNY" - The Museum of the City of New York which is hosting an exhibition of photographs of firefighters In the wake of the tragedy, the arts community has responded to the tragedy in ways which are as diverse as our community itself: - from the NEW YORK TIMES' compelling PORTRAITS OF GRIEF which emphasize the importance of each and every life lost in the tragedy; to Marie-Christine Katz' MAPS OF DISPLACEMENTS (SEPTEMBER 11TH) an installation which calls attention to the many people displaced by the disaster -- integrating drawings and sculptures (in paper and fabric with wire, wax, thread, ash, ink and pencil) with interviews with displaced people who lived and worked in the WTC area before 9/11. Katz' work was included in 911 SHOW/ARTISTS Respond, an exhibition at the Bronx River Art Center. (which originated at the Kentler International Drawing Space in Red Hook Brooklyn) - from painter Wendy Cook's compelling account of the rescue of 17 pets from the disaster area; to visual and performance artist Pat Oleszko's narrative of working to help victims in the aftermath. She described the disaster in this way: "Dust was filling the air and the horror seeped like the foul smell slowly into consciousness. Mesmerized by the sight, I watched the fire move, and then the horror of maybe forty people jump from the Towers of Babble, as individuals, then in groups. Even watching it live, it was incomprehensible until the north tower imploded like Vesuvius in reverse. Then Building Five fell, down like a sheet of water at the end of my street." - from poet Kate Daniels, a professor of English at Vanderbilt University, who 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; to poet Eliot Katz' searing examination of "The Logic of War" (published in BOOG CITY, a new New York City poetry newsletter) in which he concludes: "For now, we are teaching the terrorists a clear lesson that you don't solve your gripes with bombs unless you're the world's sole superpower." At the University of Oregon, the Carlton Savage Endowment for International Relations and Peace invited composers of all nationalities to create choral music on the theme of Waging Peace. "The waging of peace is a dynamic process in which music has a crucial role to play," they state. "By performing and hearing music from around the world, we are taking an active part in promoting understanding -- and ultimately, peace -- between the diverse peoples of humankind. As a communal art, choral music is an especially moving way to experience the unity of all people; it has the power to bring us together as peoples of all races, ethnicities and nationalities." On the Internet, Nina Meledandri, a painter living and working a mile from the site, created THEARTPROJECT, a forum for visual artists to share their personal responses to the tragedy. To date over 125 artists have contributed work to theARTproject -- including painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, web art, video and communal projects. "Six months later, as the recovery process continues, each of us might be at a different stage," she writes on the site. "Wherever you are, theARTproject exists to provide an opportunity for reflection and for a shared sense of community. The site offers a wide range of responses from artists across this country and around the world; what they have in common is that each submission is an attempt by another human being to share something meaningful about this tragedy with you." In New York City, Artsgenesis has initiated We, the children, an arts-in-education project intended to promote healing and unity. Working with a team of grief counselors and visual, theatre, and writing artists, the program helps children voice their complex and painful feelings regarding the tragedy. In New York City, The Museum of the City of New York is hosting the exhibition BROTHERHOOD: IN STRENGTH AND SORROW - IMAGES OF THE FDNY. The exhibition features the work of 69 photographers, who documented the firehouses which lost members in the tragedy, as well as the lives of the firefighters and the reactions of their communities. "On September 11, 2001, the New York City Fire Department helped save the lives of 25,000 civilians. On the same day, the FDNY lost 343 of its members. These numbers attest both to the magnitude of loss on this one day and to the skills and valor of the men and women who serve in the FDNY," the Museum states to introduce the work. "GIVEN THE TREMENDOUS DIVERSITY OF THESE INDIVIDUALS WHOSE SHORT STORIES I HAVE READ, I THINK ABOUT THE TRAGIC DESTINY THAT THEY ALL SHARED THROUGH COMING TOGETHER AT THIS ONE POINT IN TIME AND SPACE...." - Artist Karin Schaefer The Bronx River Art Center hosted two shows WTC - LIVING IN THE SHADOWS A 25 YEAR COLLECTIVE RETROSPECTIVE and 911 SHOW / ARTISTS RESPOND, which originated at the Kentler International Drawing Space in Red Hook Brooklyn. In the responses to the tragedy as well as in their documentation of the area before September 11, 2001, the artists whose work was included in these exhibitions provide viewers with different entry ways to understand their own experiences of terror, grief, numbness, and dislocation. For instance, Moses Ros describes his DEEP IMPACT 2001 in this way: "The artwork is composed of an upside down subway map of lower Manhattan with a superimposed outline of a head representing the collective consciousness of the city, the nation, the world. At the place where the WTC once stood is a red blast, a head wounded that turned the world upside down, a world forever changed and sadder for it." Karin Schaefer, who responded to the New York Times' continuing series of profiles of those who lost their lives at the WTC, describes her work in this way: "Memorializing a detail of their lives, I make drawings of their commute to work. Using a 75 mile radius map, I draw a dot that represent each person in the town or neighborhood where they lived, and the route that I imagine they took to work on that day. These drawings are studies for a larger memorial piece where I will etch and draw the maps onto glass, then layer the sheets of glass creating a thick transparent wall of lines all converging at a single point. "Given the tremendous diversity of these individuals whose short stories I have read, I think about the tragic destiny that they all shared through coming together at this one point in time and space....," she writes. "....IF THE SYMBOLS OF THE UNIVERSE EXIST IN SHAPE AND FORM WITHIN US, WHAT DOES DARKNESS AND LIGHT IN THIS NEW AGE OF TERROR LOOK LIKE, FEEL LIKE, AND WHO AM I WITHIN THIS COLLECTIVE SPACE. WHAT IS THE INTERIOR LANDSCAPE THAT ALTERS, MY PERSONAL 'CENTER,' AND YOURS, WHEN THE EXTERIOR LANDSCAPE IS DESTROYED?" -- artist Rhonda Schaller Currently included in the WHITNEY BIENNIAL's sound and performance program, is Stephen Vitiello's soundscape which uses a 1999 recording he made in his studio on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center. In the American Music Center's web magazine NEWMUSICBOX, Vitielo describes how in the work he brought the sound from outside in through his studio's thick, sealed windows by affixing inexpensive contact microphones to the windows and accentuating certain frequencies and taking out others "until I started to hear life outside. The first sound I heard was bells ringing from somewhere in the city. I never heard them again but it was beautiful. The sounds heard and gathered each day varied, depending on wind conditions and work that might be going on or outside the building. At times there was a massed sound of everything at once that gave the effect of an orchestra tuning up into a large reverb chamber. At other moments, I could hear people on the streets below. The planes and helicopters buzzed or stormed by.....The effect was that people who had formerly seen the view from my window as some sort of cinematic fabrication now were able to touch on an experience of the physicality of the space in and around the building and our own vulnerability." In DARKNESS and LIGHT THE WORLD AFTER 9/11, artist Rhonda Schaller, whose studio is 10 blocks away from where the twin towers used to stand, is exhibiting works made on paper by thickly covering reds, yellows and blues with black and white oil pastel -- so that the colors beneath "shine through, creating a sense of inner power and process contained." "These works are post 9/11. I had no other choice but to begin to make these works, where darkness and light are redefined in the collective unconscious," she writes in her statement. Noting that as an artist she is responding to a "major shift in the reality of the community", she states: "What does light, hope, forgiveness, attachment mean in this context? What undercurrent of light do we tap into, and live with, hold onto, while we learn to coexist when there are shadows everywhere. In this truth time, when the universe has shifted, and light and dark are above and below, who are we? These works are personal, and collective, and share a vision of a shift in perception where transformation can happen in an instant." EXIT ART DISPLAYS OVER 1,000 REACTIONS TO THE EVENTS OF SEPT 11 Displaying over 1,000 reactions from a global call for responses to the events of September 11, Exit Art in New York City is hosting the exhibition REACTIONS through March 30, 2002. 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. 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 was exhibited. "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. 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." 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.
"WE ARE FIGHTING TO PRESERVE FREEDOM In a statement circulated by email, writer/performance artist Marty Pottenger described the remarkable art works and performances which occurred in Union square, writing that that "Over a couple thousand people are there at Union Square at any one time. 5 white cellists are playing Bach under a circle of trees, as 10 black young men are playing trumpets and trombones in the center of a circle of 300 hundred people. Hundreds of photos of the missing people are on trees, fences, lampposts, with scores of candles burning below them. The subway stop is a fence of pictures of the missing loved ones." The Artists Network described a performance at Union Square in this way: "At 12 noon Saturday, over 100 artists all wearing black filed onto Union Square at 14th Street in New York City where many people have been gathering for the last 10 days to grieve and to try to make sense of what happened on September 11. A hush fell over the crowd at Union Square as the artists took their places in a semi-circle. For one hour they stood in silence wearing face masks and placards silk-screened with "OUR GRIEF IS NOT A CRY FOR WAR." A few months later, poet Eliot Katz looked at the aftermath of September 11, in "The Logic of War". In the poem he asks why the mainstream press hasn't focused more on alternatives to a long war, alternatives such as "investigations, intelligence, freezing assets, police action arrests plus a more democratic egalitarian foreign policy", and he calls attention to the way human life is valued/not valued as he describes the CNN ticker tape of the WTC death count, the moving New York Times obituaries of the victims, the videotape of Bin Laden's gloating over American civilian death counts, and the lack of coverage in this country of an estimated 3,700 Afghan civilian deaths. "Poetry is a great art form for exploring and expressing one's thoughts and feelings about major events," says Katz who is the author of UNLOCKING THE EXITS, (Coffee House Press, 1999) a cofounder of LONG SHOT literary magazine, and a coeditor of POEMS FOR THE NATION, (Seven Stories Press, 2000) a collection of contemporary political poems compiled by the late poet Allen Ginsberg. "After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, hundreds of new and old poems were circulating -- poems of grief, poems of witness, social verse exploring what America might do next to help create a safer and more humane world. Poetry seemed necessary both for its value in psychological processing and for its role in social expression. There's something about poetry that seems to dig deep into the minds and souls of readers -- a sense of profound, lasting significance aided by poetry's condensed phrasing, thought-inducing line breaks, surprising juxtapositions, inventive imagery and rhythms, unique angles of perception, etc." He also noted that "Of course, good journalism can also achieve the most profound level of importance, and there has been some excellent journalism in the alternative press -- in print, online, and in such radio shows as Amy Goodman's DEMOCRACY NOW. But with the mainstream media, especially TV news, so dominated these days by commercial interests and a relatively narrow range of opinions, (which has become even narrower since the war in Afghanistan started), poetry seems to be growing ever more crucial as a public arena open to a wide variety of opinions and forms of expression." In a poem which begins"
"i have not written one word. poet Suheir Hammad writes:
"....the dead are called lost and their families hold up shaky
printouts in front of us through screens smoked up. "WE BELIEVE THAT ANY AND ALL DECISIONS REGARDING THE REMEMBRANCE AND RENEWAL OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER SITE MUST INCLUDE THE NEEDS AND VISIONS OF ALL WHO HAVE IN SOME WAY BEEN AFFECTED BY THE TRAGEDY" -- Imagine New York The World Trade Center (1970 - 1977, steel frame, glass curtain wall) consisted of seven buildings and a shopping concourse. Its 110-story rectangular twin towers -- one rising to 1,362 ft and the other to 1,368 ft -- were designed by Minoru Yamasaki. (Yamasaki and Associates, with Emery Roth and Sons) The towers and concourse portion of the center were completed in 1973 at a cost of $750 million. "Today I watched something crumble that I thought would stand forever. I don't remember the New York skyline without the twin towers. And now I will never be able to look at it again without thinking of them, or what happened to them on September 11th," begins a post from Ann Campbell on a SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 - REFLECTION SCROLL, which was started on the Internet by the Arts Council of Chautauqua County as a place for people to record their thoughts about the tragedy. "Visually, the World Trade Centers were, for me, magnets, anchors, rudders. I am now lopsided, adrift, disoriented, lost," Susanna Heller whose work was included in WTC Living in the Shadows at the Bronx River Art Center, writes in a statement about her work. The Municipal Art Society, in partnership with over 50 civic and community organizations, and a network of partners have launched IMAGINE New York, a series of public "visioning" workshops, culminating during the week of April 11. They are inviting people in neighborhoods and towns throughout the region to come together to voice their opinions, ideas, concerns and visions for the future of the World Trade Center site. Details of workshops are available on their website at http://www.imagineny.org Sources/resources:
MICHAEL RICHARDS
THE MICHAEL RICHARDS FUND -- http://www.lmcc.net/mrfund.htm LOWER MANHATTAN CULTURAL CENTER - http://www.lmcc.net TRIBUTE IN LIGHT -- http://www.creativetime.org/towers/
Gustavo Bonevardi
"Portraits in Grief"
National Coalition Against Censorship BRONX RIVER ART CENTER-- http://www.bronxriverart.org KENTER INTERNATIONAL DRAWING SPACE -- http://www.kentlergallery.org/
Kate Daniels THEARTPROJECT -- http://www.theartproject.net/ WAGING PEACE THROUGH SINGING-- http://www.iwagepeace.com ARTSGENESIS -- http://artsgenesis.net/
ARTS EDUCATION PROJECT MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK -- http://www.mcny.org/
DARKNESS and LIGHT THE WORLD AFTER 9/11 EXIT ART -- http://www.exitart.org MARTY POTTENGER -- Email: mpott@infohouse.com THE ARTISTS NETWORK -- http://www.artistsnetwork.org/news/news14.html WHITNEY BIENNIAL -- http://www.whitney.org/2002biennial/
Stephen Vitiello
Eliot Katz
Suheir Hammad Arts Council for Chautauqua County -- http://www.artscouncil.com/
"The Attack on Civil Liberties"
THE CORNELIA STREET CAFE --
http://www.corneliastreetcafe.com/
Sara Reisman GREAT BUILDINGS - THE WORLD TRADE CENTER - http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/World_Trade_Center.html IMAGINE NEW YORK -- http://www.imagineny.org
__FROM TED BERGER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE NEW YORK FOUNDATION
FOR THE ARTS
__Reports of Arts Community Losses Accumulate as Artists and
Arts Administrators Cope with the Aftermath of Disaster; Stories
of Survival and of Helping Hands Bring Light in the
Darkness; In Union Square, Shrines Express a Collective Grief
__Many Artists in LMCC World Views Program Lost all Their Work;
But Group Pulls Together to Mourn Those Who Died and to Dialogue
about the Future
__THE LANDS WITHIN ME - EXPRESSIONS BY CANADIAN ARTISTS OF ARAB
ORIGIN Will Open at Canadian Museum of Civilization as
Scheduled
__"Dust was filling the air and the horror seeped like the foul
smell slowly into consciousness...." - Pat Oleszko
__Boston Symphony Orchestra Cancels Performances of
Adams/Goodman DEATH OF KLINGHOFFER Choruses
__"From Exit Art in New York City to the Santa Fe Art Institute,
Artists and Arts Organizations Create and Foster Art About
September 11 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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