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| Manju Shandler, Gesture American, 2001-2003 |
Five years ago I acknowledged the tenth anniversary of the
September 11, 2001 attacks on my city and on Washington. It is now five years later and, in the way of
humans, another significant marker anniversary is here. There has been a great deal of progress down
in lower Manhattan since 2011. The
Freedom Tower is open, the Memorial Museum is open, you no longer need tickets
to approach the plaza where the voids are, with their rims listing the names of
the dead, even the long anticipated transportation hub has opened. But the sadness still remains whenever we
think of it.
In my tenth anniversary article I mused on the art produced
after the event. There have been a few
small exhibitions of work, but this anniversary has finally brought an
exhibition home to the site. The National
September 11th Memorial and Museum will host its first ever
temporary art exhibition, entitled Rendering the Unthinkable: Artists Respond to 9/11. It will feature the reaction to
the event from 13 artists, including some that were mentioned in my 2011
article. All the artists selected had
close connections to the event.
The
exhibition will open on September 12th. I have been to the memorial, finding and
offering a prayer for the repose of one of my former co-workers, who had just
left my company for a job at Cantor-Fitzgerald, where almost everyone who was at work
that day died. But I have been unsure
about visiting the museum, unsure of my own ability to deal with the emotions
it raises. This may give me the impetus
I need to finally visit.
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| Donna Levinstone, Eternal Rest American, 2001 New York Historical Society, Gift of Donna Levinstone |
In addition, the New York Historical Society is displaying a
special installation of photographs of the World Trade Center taken over the
entire life cycle of the towers and their aftermath. Called World Trade Center Four Decades: Photographs by Camilo José Vergara. It
will run until “late September”.
Five years ago I speculated that what appeared to be a lack
of visual response to the attacks was due to its still close proximity. Perhaps the last five years have provided
enough perspective for us to look back with a little less pain.
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| Camilo Jose Vergara, Towers of Light from New Jersey American, 2002 |
© M. Duffy, 2016
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