Artists Remember A Tragedy

After the events of September 11, artists across the city were recorded in interviews questioning the value of their trade. Some said the magnitude of the horror of the tragedy was too great for art to encompass, while others argued that such terrible circumstances demanded a kind of practical action that art could not deliver.
Over the past year, however, artists from New York and across the country slowly but surely began creating again as a way to heal themselves and reach out to others.
An exhibit of digital images of some of those works, curated by Long Island City artist Louise Weinberg and techno-artist Kenny Greenberg, will open today at LaGuardia Community College. The show is called Mnemonic: a 9/11 Memorial Exhibition, and each work offers a different way of remembering the tragedy.
"In some way, this exhibit is providing a focus for the process of communicating," Weinberg explained. "Art is about communicating. If someone gets solace by looking at something, that helps them move forward a little bit. Art at its best can help people identify and not feel alone."
The works include a painting by Roxana Alger Geffen that depicts the funeral of her father, who died at the World Trade Center.
Another work is an oil painting created in 2000 by Dennis DAmelio of the view from his studio on the 91st floor of the Trade Center.
In one simple collage, Elizabeth Riley of Manhattan has placed a printout of a September 9 email from a colleagues husband-in which he explains the origins of some ties he donated for one of her projectson some of the ties with a photograph of him. The man died on September 11.
Artists from places as disparate as Scotland, Japan, Australia, Tennessee and New Jersey entered pieces in the exhibit, along with the many New Yorkers who participated.
Weinberg said many of the artists she had spoken with said they had felt frozen after September 11, but that by now they had found time to process the events and could channel their emotions creatively again.
"Art can help artists cope with this [event]," Weinberg said. "And it can help other people cope through recognition of an expression of something inexpressible."
Weinberg said she, too, felt frozen after September 11.
"I stood in my living room and watched the towers go down," she said. "I cried for months. To me it was like losing someone in my family."
It took nearly a month before she could address the events through art.
"I made my first trip [to ground zero] on October 6," she said. She returned over and over again to photograph what she saw. "It became a mission for me," she said.
She took pictures of firehouses, dust-laden stores and memorials left to the dead.
Weinberg compared the sense of purpose she gained in photographing the aftermath to the powerlessness she experienced on a practical level.
"We felt helpless as New Yorkers," she said. "I tried to bring socks down [to the rescue workers], but they already had a thousand pairs. I tried to give blood but they didnt need me."
She said the artists who responded to her call for 9/11-related work have expressed similar feelings.
"The response Ive gotten from artists is that theyre so glad to be part of this," she said. "No one can come to terms with this; its too big to understand. This can create a forum for communication."
The art can be seen at LaGuardia Community Colleges Atrium Gallery through November 11. Many of the works can also be seen at https://www.licweb.com/mnemonic . For further information, call (718) 482-5060.