USA TODAY
"What have artists wrought from 9/11?"
September 3, 2004
Sec 9D, Pg -
Author: Maria Puente

What have artists wrought from 9/11?

A look at all sorts of 9-11 inspired art, from solemn to quirky:

Fleeting art

The artwork that has received the most acclaim is the most ephemeral: Tribute in Light, two massive beacons of light at Ground Zero, restore the Manhattan skyline with ghostly replicas of the fallen twin towers. Conceived by a group of New York artists, the phantom towers resonated with many, perhaps because they were temporary. Plus, they are sophisticated without being abstruse, elegiac without being morbid. (Related story: Definitive art of Sept. 11 is yet to emerge)

"There's something beautiful about its ephemerality – it adds a spiritual dimension," says Terence Riley of MoMA.

Memorial art

Much Sept. 11 art is explicitly memorial. Scores of communities across the USA have commissioned public artworks that use steel recovered from Ground Zero.

In Pennsauken, N.J., sculptor Brian Hanlon was commissioned by town leaders to create a memorial consisting of life-size bronze figures of a police officer, firefighter, emergency medical technician and police dog lending aid to a survivor at Ground Zero, in front of a black granite wall reading "We Shall Never Forget." In Brick Township, N.J., he was commissioned by the widows of nine World Trade Center victims to make Angel in Anguish, a life-size bronze sculpture of a winged angel weeping on a headstone. "These victims were never found, they don't have a headstone, so this is their headstone," he says.

Dallas sculptor John Collier's Sept. 11 commission is expressly religious, aimed not at conveying horror or outrage but Christian concepts of resurrection and hope. He created four bronzes of patron saints – St. Michael for police, St. Joseph for workers, St. Florian for firefighters, Mary Magdalene for resurrection – for St. Peter's Catholic Church in downtown New York, which was damaged on 9/11. They fit in the long tradition of devotional, figurative statuary. "The best religious works are by nature narrative," he says. "It's difficult to tell stories with abstract images, it's hard to get at universal themes."

Abstract art

Public distaste for abstract art is not new, but the desire for literal representations seemed to intensify for Sept. 11-related artworks. Still, some abstract works have gained notice. In Hanover Square near Ground Zero, British expatriates in New York plan to build a memorial garden to honor the 67 British nationals who died on Sept. 11. The centerpiece will be Unity, a large black-granite monolith that will contain a carved-out inner chamber polished to reflect light so that it appears to hold an eternal flame. The piece is by British sculptor Anish Kapoor, an acclaimed artist whose only other work in the USA is Cloud Gate, a monumental abstract sculpture of stainless steel in Chicago's new Millennium Park that has been dubbed the "Jelly Bean."

"We wanted the (British) park to be about renewal and strengthening," says Camilla Hellman, a British New Yorker who conceived the park.

North Carolina sculptor Jim Gallucci has made a 23-foot-high abstract sculpture out of some of the 16 tons of World Trade Center steel beams that he hauled down to his studio in Greensboro soon after Sept. 11. Gallucci would dearly love to donate Gates of Sorrow to New York if only someone would take it. So far, the city isn't interested.

"The gate is a symbol of the end of our innocence, the day when the door opened to what the world is about, when we learned how vulnerable we are," says Gallucci.

Figurative art

Eric Fischl's bronze, Tumbling Woman, depicts a larger-than-life naked woman falling, with arms and legs flailing. When it went on display at Rockefeller Center a year after the attacks, it freaked out some people who were reminded of the victims who jumped or fell from the doomed towers. Just days later, it was taken away.

"It was a way of putting into form the feelings I had about that terrible event, but also it spoke to that disequilibrium that we all shared," says Fischl, who lost a friend in the towers. But "maybe we should have waited a little longer."

Still, an edition of five was made and sold to collectors.

Quirky art

Soon after Sept. 11, a young New York artist named David Greg Harth began stamping dollar bills with the words I AM NOT TERRORIZED and I AM NOT AFRAID. He estimates that he and others around the world have stamped nearly 1 million bills so far.

"The terrorists struck the financial capital of the world – I choose money as my medium to attack back," says Harth, whose studio was a few blocks from the World Trade Center.

Cleveland artist Bob Novak made a 10-foot electric guitar to honor firefighters killed on Sept. 11. The piece, titled All Gave Some, Some Gave All, depicts firefighters raising the flag over Ground Zero, merged with the image of the flag-raising over Iwo Jima. The back lists the nearly 3,000 victims who died in the attacks. The sculpture, now on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, was commissioned by an insurance company, which plans to auction it for charity in November.

Controversial art

Some art is just this side of kitsch, like the 98-foot-high nickel-and-bronze teardrop that Moscow artist Zurab Tsereteli wants to install on the Jersey City waterfront across from the World Trade Center site. Tsereteli, who calls the piece The Struggle Against World Terrorism,is best known for putting up gigantic statues in Russia, such as a 307-foot-high Peter the Great that opponents once threatened to blow up.

Tsereteli talked the Jersey City mayor into accepting the piece – but then the mayor died. Now a final decision on the sculpture has been delayed, opponents are organizing, and Tsereteli is trying to rally support by running full-page ads in local newspapers.

The piece is a 175-ton bronze monolith with a nickel teardrop suspended within and water running down its face. "People thought it was ugly, insensitive and had sexual overtones," says documentary photographer Leon Yost, who lives near the waterfront. "When you compare it to the 'towers of light,' it makes people here want to throw up."

Tsereteli's New York lawyer, Emily Madoff, dismisses the opposition as small but loud. "But for the mayor dying, this could have been up and ready by the 2004 anniversary."

But there's no way that's going to happen by then, and maybe not by next year either, says Roger Jones, chief of staff to the acting mayor. "It's not a slam-dunk project."

Conceptual art

Xu Bing, a Chinese-born artist living in New York, won a $75,000 European arts prize this year for his installation, Dust, in which he used actual dust from Ground Zero, spread it on the floor of a gallery and traced in it the Chinese characters of a line from a nameless poem: "Where does the dust collect itself?"

"Dust is a very Zen idea," the artist told The New York Times.

back to press

Biscayne Boulevard Times
Life After Art Basel: Can It Get Any Better?
January 2004
Pgs. 16-17
Author: Xavier Griffin

Read Article Online

View Referenced Art Work

Life After Art Basel: Can It Get Any Better?

Art Basel saw the who's-who of the art world strut their stuff for all to see. Rows of Rolls, bunches of Bentleys, even the elusive Maybach made an appearance (the unexpected highlight of my week - getting a ride in this new super-smooth-stealthy-soft-hi-tech-quick-and-sophisticated $400,000 automotive-masterpiece!).

From Picasso, Pollock, and Picabia paintings hidden in the back rooms, to Dali, Dubuffet, and Damien Hirst works beneath the bright lights of the main floor, the high rollers brought the world's cultural eye squarely to rest, like a hurricane, on Miami.

Most came and left like ghosts in the night, only assuring us they'll haunt this way again (next year and every year thereafter for generations to come). As a Miami native, I was more interested in who stuck around the people that were here to check out our scene, not just let us bask in the glory of theirs.

On Thursday, January 8, the AJ Japour Gallery will present "Urban Art with a View 3," featuring such (art world) household names as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. But what caught my attention is a New York City artist who seems to be finding a second home right here in the sub-tropics.

David Greg Harth is only 28, and a self-admittedly quiet individual, but the impact of his art has already been felt around the world and featured in the New York Times and on CNN. After 9/11 he stamped over a quarter million US dollars with the statement, "I AM NOT TERRORIZED," a message that resonated with his fellow New Yorkers, Americans and freedom-loving people across the globe.

At the Chelsea Hotel on Washington Ave., which hosted "OPEN," a group show by the Szilage Gallery (St. Petesrburg, FL), I enjoyed too many late night beverages as Harth opened my eyes to his work, to his world and to what it was like to see the Twin Towers through your studio window ä no more.

For "Urban Art with a View 3," Harth will be executing his latest 'Wall Drawing' and 'Thinkways', works that have ranged in scale from 3" x 3" to one covering over 450 sq. ft. of wall space. As I viewed the work myself, it drew me in, a conceptual road map to an artist's mind. Since Harth is reticent to speak about his work in public, I turned to several people who know his work intimately to get inside his art, his mind, his vision.

Lance S. Longwell, a young art collector in New York City, recently decided to add another of Harth's work to his collection. Longwell, like many serious collectors, takes his time, often studying an artist's work for many years before making a purchase. Therefore, he knows a great deal about this series.

"Harth's been working on such drawings all his life," says Longwell, "but started executing actual 'Thinkways' drawings in the early 1990's. In spring of 2001, he exhibited large scale 'Wall Drawings' and 'Thinkways' studies at Parsons Gallery in New York City. 'Thinkways' can take as short as 20 minutes and as long as years to complete. At the Parsons Gallery exhibit, where there were multiple 'Wall Drawings,' the largest was about 14 feet high by 30 feet wide. That work took him about 12 hours, non-stop. I heard he was listening to Lionel Hampton as he was drawing. I'll leave it to you to make that connection."

Longwell went on to note that "as Harth draws these ways, he thinks. Hence, 'Thinkways.' Like most artists, he's been drawing his whole life, and his drawings have become more refined, much to the same degree as his explorations of his own mind as he executes them."

Tiffani Szilage, of the Szilage Gallery, has represented David Greg Harth since 1997 and has had the unique opportunity of watching him grow from a young, aspiring artist to the level of "emerging" artist and now to the brink of becoming an established artist.

Szilage says, "All serious art is exciting to Harth. He works in many mediums, often incorporating new technologies like computers and digital video, and bringing seriousness to his work that few artists his age can even envision, much less execute. But 'Thinkways' and 'Wall Drawing's enable him to be more organic and therefore more complete in his expression. The work flows out of his mind and through his finger tips. It's romantic. It's sensual. Not that new technologies aren't, but working with graphite on paper or on a wall is just so tactile, sensuous, and≠you know, it's not a dirty word≠"BEAUTIFUL!". He becomes one with the surface, and for those of us who look, and I mean, REALLY LOOK, so do we."

When asked about a message in his work, Szilage responded, "Harth is always focused on a message, but he's also one of those rare artists who understand that work does not need to deliver an immediate message. This isn't television, and it isn't advertising. Works can grow on viewers, including the artist. The important thing is that he gets the work out of his system, and we let the work into our systems. As gallerists, collectors, curators, and art-lovers at all levels, we must help the artist execute it. Then step back, take a look, and the artist and the viewers will learn its meaning through discovery and consistent observation. There just is no replacement for looking not glancing, but looking deeply until you actually see the work."

As I tilled this fertile artistic ground for deeper revelations, I was stunned to learn of Harth's personal experience with neurological mysteries, a subject I felt might have some bearing on the work. Twice in his life, Harth has been in an extended coma, each time with uncertain prognoses. Although he was understandably reserved about delving too deeply into these ultimately extremely personal experiences, I could easily see the relationship. Some say all art is a self-portrait of the artist who created the work of art and I'm sure such an event in one's life must be an influence in-and-of itself.

As for his future, being in "Urban Art with a View 3" (an invite-only event) certainly can't hurt. While Harth already has an international base of collectors and arts professionals that will be knocking on the door of the AJ Japour Gallery, Harth hopes to find some serious acceptance and support from the minders and keepers of Miami culture.

<p>

In speaking with Dr. Anthony J. Japour, I found out that a precious few of Harth's works are available ($100 - $10,000). Dr. Japour, who works with artists ranging from the aspiring to the established and with collectors at all levels, said, "I doubt the word "emerging" will be attached to Harth's work for much longer. 'Urban Art with a View 3' is intended to span the full scale of recognition. Basquiat and Haring are already known. Steven Logan and Alex Steneck are only just starting out. Harth, Irene Sperber, and Alberto Senior are at various points in the middle. They are all worth looking at and I hope people will take the time to make an appointment and come and see all the work. If I didn't think it was worth your time to look at it, I wouldn't show it."

For more information on David Greg Harth, you can find his web site at www.davidgregharth.com and more of his work at the Szilage Gallery web site at www.szilage.com. For more information on "Urban Art with a View 3" and other AJ Japour Gallery events, you can find their web site at www.ajjapourgallery.com.

Back to press