Ausschreibung "Unforgettable" @ Berliner Kunstprojekt
by NY Arts
"Unforgettable" l�dt Berliner K�nstler und K�nstlerinnen ein, ihre Gedanken und Ideen f�r ein m�gliches Erinnern auf dem Areal der Twin Towers an die Ereignisse des 11. Septembers zu visualisieren. Das Medium der eingereichten Arbeiten ist frei w�hlbar, sie sollten jedoch leicht und transportabel sein und die Gr��e A4 nicht �berschreiten. Die Berliner Einsendungen werden ab dem 11. Oktober im Berliner Kunstprojekt gezeigt.
In New York wurde "Unforgettable" von Judy Collischam organisiert und kuratiert. Die Ausstellung wird noch bis Ende September in der Chelsea Studio Gallery und im Oktober ebenfalls im Berliner Kunstprojekt gezeigt. Im November wird eine Auswahl der New Yorker und Berliner Arbeiten in weitere L�nder wandern.
Bitte senden Sie Ihre Arbeiten bis Freitag, 4. Oktober an: Berliner Kunstprojekt, Gneisenaustr. 33, HH 2.OG, 10961 Berlin
UNFORGETTABLE / Unforgettable presents ideas by over forty artists for remembering the events of 9/11. Consisting of maquettes, drawings, prints, photographs and paintings, this show demonstrates diverse possibilities for establishing a total artistic environment on the south tip of Manhattan. Rather than one monolithic monument, why not create an atmosphere representative of America’s imagination–commercial and office spaces that incorporate sculpture, murals, doors, gardens, playgrounds, etc.–all made by artists. This country can renew itself by uniting cultural, social and political functions. New York City has the opportunity to do something different that will influence the twenty-first century. People in a new world need to live and be healed by art. We need to emphasize the beauty of difference and individuality as well as the wonder of expression and communication among human beings.
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This exhibition features a variety of approaches, including Alan Sonfist’s Healing Monument that proposes a circular forest of indigenous evergreens in the center of concentric circles inlaid with the "shadows" of victims. Also presenting a circular motif is Beverly Pepper’s Markers of Memory, a concept extensive in its scope, including an above ground arena with megalithic markers and below–a hall for films, photos and memorabilia. More abstract in format is the spiral shape of Chakaia Booker used in structure and base. Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s medicine wheel based Design for WTC Monument features plantings, a fountain and pavers with victims’ names.
Fountains also occur dramatically in Donald Lipski’s Proposed Monument to September 11, 2002 that utilizes the single remaining World Trade wall, a shard of the past, surrounded by soaring jets of water. There is a quietude about Michelle Stuart’s Seed Fountain beginning with a seed buried beneath the earth that metaphorically emerges in sprouting/spouting sprays of water, conveying a sense of renewal.
Water also plays a role in the form of pools in proposals by Alan Finkel, Donna Dennis and Barry Holden/Nina Yankowitz. Finkel’s National Firefighters Memorial Sanctuary envisions a procession of glass ladders and buckets flanked by channels of flowing water. Symbolically representing a bucket brigade, this ethereal feeling piece would lead southward down the west side to the site. As her text describes it, Dennis’s piece has an autobiographical basis as she has recounted in words and forms her experiences living close to Ground Zero. Her pools would reflect night stars that one person thought should be named for victims. A telescope set atop a planted hill covering the destruction could be used for viewing the heavens. Going subterranean is Barry Holden/Nina Yankowitz’s inverted pyramid layered down to a space of rest and surrounded by office tiers.
From earth to sky moves Caspar Henselmann’s Target, once again a circle but here denoting a place. At the perimeter is seating and in the center are vapors symbolically emerging from two squares. Recollections of rising smoke also occur in Christy Rupp’s Burned Sky with 2 Holes. Subtly, she suggests the beautiful blue sky and puffy white clouds of the infamous day. The sky also dominates Dennis Adams’ Snake Eyes in which two bright red plastic bags float in the distance, recalling the flying debris of 9/11.
AA Battery Park and Mute Monument are the titles of Maura Sheehan’s small maquettes of birds. Motion detectors in the first set off the pastoral sound of a chirping bird, while the other is nested within a white picket fence the symbol of sanctuary. Birds, as well as squirrels must have suffered that day, as human strife interrupted nature.
Spectators’ motions are also part of Moving Perimeter by Mary Miss, wherein a formation of modular, sectioned planters are configured and may be reconfigured into a figure 8 shape as a "seamless line" and "infinite knot," signifying linkage between past and future. The modules are blue signifying that day, and they would stand about waist high like police barriers. According to Eduardo Costa/Jimmy Pinto’s project, viewers could climb stairs up and down tracing stock market graphs related to Wall Street in southern Manhattan. Going Through It also suggests positive and negative aspects of life as well as the cycles of human history.
Geometrical forms represent ideas by Lucio Pozzi, Chuck Ginnever, Angiola Churchill and Graeme Sullivan. Pozzi’s The Books of Time envisions a dynamic association of intersecting planes set at diagonals to one another. These walls would bear victims’ names. Long concerned with perspective and providing audiences with multiple views is Ginnever’s idea that coincides with his continuing interest in open structure. Walk the Labyrinth of Peace is the hopeful idea offered by Churchill. Her elegant plexi model features paths through gardens, defined by transparent walls encasing skeins of falling water. A meditative, reflective space is intended. Sullivan, who spent days after the tragedy drawing on site in his sketchbook, has arranged some of these amid a found, open framework allowing passage of light and air.
Spiritual in aura is Clearing by Stephen Antonakos, presented here in the form of photograph of a model and text. Again, this work permits an integration of outer and inner space. Like a chapel, it is intended for meditation, as is a model by Niki Ketchman with veil like walls, enclosing two tree forms representing rebirth.
A surreal flavor characterizes projects by Acconci Studio, Alice Aycock and Dennis Oppenheim. A Building Full of Holes provides Acconci’s current emphasis on extraordinary architecture. Rising above the skyline, the structure would have external public spaces and internal private ones. Aycock’s The Large Scale Dis/Integration of Micro-lectronic Memories Second Phase at Sunset, has the quality of science fiction, like a Star Wars habitat. Desire to Root Out Evil, is the title of Dennis Oppenheim’s photo of a building stuck in the ground by its tower. Perhaps a church or civic building, the work appears to question institutional purposes.
Metaphysical and mystical in tone is Presence and Absence, Unforgetting the Dead and Remembering the Living by Kirstin Jones/Andrew Ginzel who recommend a pavement set with eyes geared to light up and fade with audience movement. Resulting trajectories of light symbolize of human passage through life.
Entries in the show run the gamut from private to political. In the first vein is Paul Wong’s Personal Shrine, a quiet, intimate work that can be illuminated by a three-way light switch, and that seems more cosmopolitan in its emphasis on household altar as opposed to monolithic monument. Mike Bidlo’s Baited Breaths (Rrose Selvy Regrets…), is an "anti-monument," participatory piece consisting of black lipstick provided for viewers’ to kiss the wall leaving their imprint. Likewise, Maren Hassinger solicits response with her Why Did This Happen? that consists of a notebook of paper on which participants may provide their answer. On large scale, the work would take the form of a huge book engraved with individuals’ viewpoints. Enigmatic is Edgar Heap of Birds’ piece called Cause, that states "Cause and Effect," the letters traced by American sticker flags mounted to three sheets of black foam core. Perhaps the most charged political piece is Untitled by Noah Jemisin consisting of three-dimensional male genitals, the erect penis pointed toward female genitals set at the apex of a surrounding aureole. Jemisin represents here the association of phallus with skyscraper as a symbol of male aggressiveness. The female presence softens the message with one of lovemaking–"make love not war.’’
Specific to the World Trade Center site are works by AJ Nadel, Kazuko Miyamoto, Lorenzo Pace and Helene Brandt. Nadel’s model consists of a tall rectangular container for a mound of ashes, entitled Population 2819+, that parallels the notion of reliquary. Metropolis, by Miyamoto s a manipulated photograph of the current construction site, that forms a pointed, flat tower shape framing efforts to rebuild. Pace who designed the memorial to slave burial grounds in lower Manhattan, geographically and metaphorically relates his Foley Square location to that of the twin towers as both have become places for the dead. Emphasizing the efforts of police and fireman to save lives is Brandt’s plan for a mosaic called Forever. A digital collage, it juxtaposes officers and fire fighters as well as civilians ascending and descending her sharply rising perspective view.
Conceptually bent are the submissions of John Perreault, Sol Lewitt and Abraham Lubelski. Perreault wryly illustrates the possibility of five monuments rather than one as he exposes our relative notions of size. LeWitt’s faxed statement expresses his feeling that the place should become a garden for people to experience, "contemplation, peace, rest and self-contemplation," and Lubelski posts a broadside on the gallery door soliciting comments from viewers at his web site–a kind of electronic ledger.
In all, this is a diverse show providing many perspectives on ways in which to preserve a moment in time, hopefully for the edification of future generations.
Organized and curated in New York City by Judy Collischan, the show on view from September 5 — 28, 2002, at Chelsea Studio Gallery, will travel to Berlin in October. For further information please call 212-505-9657.
