The 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks has spurred numerous exhibitions treating the attacks, their global aftermath, the wars that were started in their name and artistic responses to all of the above. While critics might see exploitation and the jaded might plead commemoration fatigue, the sheer number of exhibitions reveals a city still very much grappling with the meaning of the tragedy and its aftermath. Herewith, a selection of (mostly) New York shows focused on the events of 9/11.
Students of the Calhoun School. Courtesy DC Moore Gallery.
MUSEUMS AND NONPROFITS:
“Remembering 9/11”
New York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York
Through Apr. 1, 2012
Photographs taken after the attack on the World Trade Center (originally collected in the independent exhibition “here is new york: a democracy of photographs”); letters to policemen and firemen; objects from makeshift shrines around New York; images and texts from the New York Times‘s “Portraits of Grief” series; photographs of the Tribute in Light and drawings of the National September 11 Memorial, designed by architect Michael Arad with the assistance of landscape architect Peter Walker.
“September 11”
MoMA PS1, 22–25 Jackson Ave. at the intersection of 46th Ave., Long Island City, Queens
Sept. 11, 2011–Jan. 9, 2012
Curator Peter Eleey describes this exhibition as offering a “subjective framework” for considering the attacks, with works from the past 50 years that touch on themes related to the attacks, such as religion and commemoration.
The 9/11 Peace Story Quilt by Faith Ringgold and New York City students
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
Through Jan. 22, 2012
Designed by the artist Faith Ringgold and made in collaboration with New York City students ages 8 to 19, the quilt comprises three 72-by-50 inch panels, each with 12 squares on the theme of peace. The quilt is displayed alongside several of the students’ original works of art that inspired its content, as well as related works made this summer by the museum’s high school interns.
9/11 National Tribute Quilt
American Folk Art Museum, 2 Lincoln Square, New York
On continuous view
Started two days after the Sept. 11 attacks by the four women who make up the Steel Quilters group of the U.S. Steel Corporation, the quilt incorporates 3,466 squares of fabric, each bearing the name of someone who died in the attacks.
“Remembering 9/11”
International Center of Photography, 1133 Sixth Ave. at 43rd Street, New York
Through Jan. 8, 2012
A collaboration with the National September 11 Memorial Museum (9/11 Memorial Museum), this exhibition of photography and video addresses issues of memory and recovery and examines how New Yorkers and volunteers from across the U.S. responded to the attacks. The exhibition comprises five parts: Memory Remains: 9/11 Artifacts at Hangar 17, an installation by Francesc Torres; photographs from Eugene Richards’s Stepping Through the Ashes; a five-channel video installation, cedarliberty, by Elena del Rivero and Leslie McCleave; Above Ground Zero, photographs and proof sheets by Gregg Brown; and excerpts from “here is new york: a democracy of photographs.”
Elena del Rivero’s [Swi:t] Home: A CHANT (2001–06)
New Museum, 235 Bowery, New York
Through Sept. 26
The New York-based artist’s sculpture, created from debris that landed in her home across the street from the World Trade Center, is on view in the lobby gallery.
“Ten Years Later: Ground Zero Remembered”
Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway
Through Oct. 30
The installation will focus on an untitled 1997 figural sculpture from the late Michael Richards’s “Tuskegee Airmen” series, a tribute to the African-American aviators of World War II, and Christoph Draeger’s photographic jigsaw puzzle WTC, September 17 (2003). Richards died in the Twin Towers.
Wolfgang Staehle’s 2001
Goethe-Institut, 5 E. 3rd St. at the Bowery, New York
Sept. 10–14
Intended to be a simple landscape video of Lower Manhattan, with unremarkable images transmitted via the Internet in real time from video cameras to Postmasters Gallery, where it was on view, Staehle’s work, which went on view just days before 9/11, inadvertently captured the attack on the World Trade Center.
“9/11: A Uniform Response”
New York City Police Museum, 100 Old Slip, New York
Through Jan. 16, 2012
In collaboration with the Associated Press, an exhibition of 30 photographs of the most iconic images of the attacks and their aftermath, drawn from the AP archives.
“Afterwards & Forward: A Ten-Year 9/11 Reflective Art Exhibition”
New Jersey City University Visual Arts Gallery, Jersey City, New Jersey
Through Sept. 27
Featuring works by 18 international artists, including Joel Meyerowitz and Yoko Ono made in response to 9/11 and the war on terror, and artworks that promote peace efforts.
GALLERIES AND OTHER SPACES
Bruce Conner, “Falling Leaves: An Anonymous Memorial”
Paula Cooper Gallery, 521 W 21st St., New York
Through Sept. 24
A series of drawings, all dating from 2001, that the late artist created in response to 9/11. The drawings are credited to “Anonymous,” one of several of Bruce Conner’s alter egos.
“9/11: Through Young Eyes”
DC Moore Gallery, 724 Fifth Ave., New York
Through Oct. 8
A display of 31 collages created in 2001 by 13-year-old students at New York’s Calhoun School on the subject of the 9/11 attacks, inspired by viewing Jacob Lawrence’s work at the Whitney Museum.
Charlotte Dumas, Retrieved
Julie Saul Gallery, 535 W 22nd St., New York
Through Oct. 15
Dumas’s photographs of the surviving rescue dogs that following 9/11, worked at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
“Selections from Pedro Lasch’s Phantom Limbs and Twin Towers Go Global“
Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, 29 Orchard St., New York
Through Oct. 9
Memorial paintings 10 years in the making, picturing the Twin Towers as if rebuilt in various cities around the globe, from Budapest to Baghdad.
“Ghost Shadows”
Elga Wimmer, 526 W. 26th St., New York
Through Oct. 1
Curated by New York artist Gregory Hilton, the show includes works by nine artists who lived in the WTC neighborhood.
Al Braithwaite, “Twinned Towers”
LTMH-Leila Heller Gallery, 39 E. 78th St., New York
Through Sept. 14
A solo exhibition of photography, sculpture and video created in an attempt to comprehend 9/11. It is the artist’s first New York solo exhibition.
Where Does the Dust Itself Collect?: An installation by Xu Bing
5 W. 22nd St., New York
Through Oct. 9
Using dust that Xu Bing collected from the streets of Lower Manhattan in the aftermath of 9/11, the installation re-creates a 25-by-20-foot field of dust across the gallery floor that is punctuated by the outline of a Chan Buddhist poem, revealed as if the letters have been removed from under the dust. Presented by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) and the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA).
“Charting Ground Zero: Ten Years After”
Woodward Gallery, 133 Eldridge St., New York
Through Oct. 23
An extensive overview of the World Trade Center site before and just after September 11th, mounted in collaboration with the City of New York and the Center for the Advanced Research of Spatial Information (CARSI) of Hunter College-CUNY. Mapping technology and cartographic representation show the transformation of the site.
“White Flags: An Artistic Response to 9/11”
Union Theological Seminary: James Chapel, 3041 Broadway at 121st Street, New York
Through Oct. 14
Spurred by the gradual fading of American flag bumper stickers applied after 9/11, artist Aaron Fein imagined a conflict-free world in which differences among flags had faded. He installs one flag to represent each of the 193 member states of the United Nations.
“Rethinking Memorial: Ten Interactive Sites for Remembering 9/11”
Various outdoor locations in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood, Sept. 10, 11 AM–5 PM
Ten artists, one representing each year since Sept. 11, 2001, create interactive memorial stations. Organized by the Brooklyn Arts Council.
“Ten Years After Nine/Eleven: Searching for a 21st Century Landscape”
The powerHouse Arena, 37 Main Street, Brooklyn
Through Sept. 16
Featuring photographers Garth Lenz, Michael Robinson Chavez, Florian Büttner and Michael Busse, who capture global changes since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Photojournalist Lenz documented the effects the oil industry has had on nature. Others examine political unrest in Egypt and social inequities in Dubai.
