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Thursday, September 16, 2004
An artist's response to 9/11
How many artists might have reacted to 11/9 tragedy? Even search
engines may not have a count. But,it must be quite a big number, if
one considers all the responses that might have come in print, online,
in drawings and paintings and through sculptures and films. I am not
including the umpteen number of artistically drafted pieces of print
responses which will be in abundance in every print publication in the
second week of September,around the world,in various languages. It is
some sort of a ritual by columnists. One can exclude the photographs
that started getting circulated through the web within minutes of the
gruesome tragedy also from the list as they were simply faithful
reproductions of what actually happened. I am yet to see the film
Fahrenheit 9/11, though it finds place 4 times,in the first 10 results
if you ask Google to search 9/11.( It is also worth mentioning that
out of the four, at least one is a criticism titled "unfairenheit
9/11".)
But I want to tell my readers about something which leaves strong
impact in your minds on 9/11. That is about an exhibition in glass on
9/11 by a young artist Lynn Rivers. I happened to see it just by
chance. On this year's 9/11, I was walking aimlessly through the
queen's walk on the south bank of Thames. A successful world premiere
of the event was going on at the.gallery@oxo, tower wharf, South Bank,
London from 9th-12th of this month. It is an architectural glass
installation piece about the destruction of the Twin Towers consisting
of nine door sized panels spanning 12 metres. The panels comprise over
400 images painstakingly sandblasted into hand-made flash glass
together with other types of specialised glass.
It is about the moment of impact - which is the title of the
piece. It doesn't follow the chronological timeframe of 9/11, but
reflects how the artist watched the TV with the different viewpoints
and repeats, while trying to make coherent sense of the catastrophic
event. It also refers to the enormity of the moments of impact upon
those who directly experienced them. It seems the work was widely
acclaimed when one of the panels - panel no. 9 - was previewed during
the International Festival of Glass held at the Red House Glass Cone,
Stourbridge, UK during August 27th-29th 2004. Viewing all the images
in toto, especially after talking to Lynn who was available at the
venue to tell you how the work took almost 2 years to reach the
present state of near perfection, was simply shocking and dreadful. It
seems it is the first major piece of work about 9/11 and to achieve
such subtle detail with sandblasting appears incredible. The technique
of sandblasting was explained to me in detail by the artist herself
and I wish she makes a note of it at her website
www.lynn-rivers.co.uk.There is absolutely no comparison between seeing
the life size images ( which are of the size of a door panel) and
segments of it available at the website which you may see in a 14- 17
inch monitor. In fact each piece of art in a single panel itself
demands careful in depth viewing and the images lead you not only to
the agony of the day but also to the continuing sequlae of the events
of present world including the latest carbomb explosion in Baghdad.
It was the same day, I happened to read the front page lead
article of "Independent" telling why we should not have allowed the
19 people to change our world. I felt both were complimentary.The real
tragedy is that great majority of us are just destined to see pieces
of art and read columns and just be on lookers of what goes on in this
world. we have no say in what is going around. The media will bring
Olympics to our living rooms to be followed by Beslan tragedy, as
though things have been scheduled by somebody sequentially. And at
least in western hemisphere,the obsessed weather experts will go on
speaking to a weather obsessed spectators. I was told there is a 24
hour channel in Canada,dedicated to weather- may be exaggeration !
Does the hurricane ( Charlie, Daniel, Francis or Evan) spare these
channels and their studios, I would like to know. Oh, no the
hurricanes have given us one more hot topic for expert non decision
makers (scientists) and non expert decision makers (politicians) to
come to our sitting rooms and enlighten us - the global warming!
Was it not Plato who said poets will have to be expelled from
republics. Artists, I believe, will have a place in a worst ever
republic , after seeing Lynn Rivers in action. More about the strange
community of artists and a painter's newsle tter in web, next week .
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Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Thursday, October 07, 2004
Friday, October 15, 2004
Friday, October 22, 2004
Saturday, October 30, 2004
Sunday, October 31, 2004
Saturday, November 06, 2004
Friday, November 12, 2004
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Saturday, November 27, 2004
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