Observations on Art 10.29

Last week Banksy, the British graffiti artist, submitted an op-ed to The New York Times that the Times board rejected. This is the text of that op-ed, a text the Times has said Banksy changed. I'm not going to say I agree with what he wrote, mostly I don't, but I do think that if the Times can print an op-ed supposedly written by Vladimir Putin they can print this.

"As a visitor staying in New York for the past few weeks one thing has become very clear to me, and I say this as a friend, you've got to do something about the new World Trade Center. The building is a disaster. Well no, disasters are interesting. One World Trade Center is a non-event. Its vanilla. Its like something they would build in Canada.

The attacks of September 11^th were an attack on all of us and we will live out our lives in their shadow. But it's also how we react to adversity that defines us. And the response? 104 floors of compromise?

Remarkable for such a tall structure One World Trade Center lacks any self-confidence. How does it stand up without a spine? It looks like it never wanted to built in the first place. It reminds you of a really tall kid at a party, awkwardly shifting his shoulders trying not to stand out from the crowd. It's the first time I've ever seen a shy skyscraper.

It would be easy to view One World Trade Center as a betrayal of everyone who lost their lives on September 11^th, because it so clearly proclaims the terrorists won. Those 10 men have condemned us to live in a world more mediocre than the one they attacked, rather than be the catalyst for a dazzling new one.

Nobody comes to New York to bathe in your well-mannered common sense. We're here for the spirit and audacity. Of which One World Trade Center has none. Instead you have to look to the rooftops, to the chorus of precariously roller painted names and slogans crawling over the skyline like poison ivy. This is the city's true heritage, a city that made it's name giving space to the mercurial and the brave.

 One World Trade declares the glory days of New York are gone. You really need to put up a better building in front of it right away. Or better still, let the kids with the roller poles finish it off. Because you currently have under construction a one thousand foot tall sign that reads, New York - we lost our nerve."

Given the opportunity I would ask Banksy a question.  If the glory days of New York are gone why did you spend a month here?

Observations on Art 6.8

Miya Ando

Brooklyn based artist Miya Ando has a fascinating bio if there ever was one. Ando was born in America of a Russian father and Japanese mother but was raised in a Nichiren Buddhist temple on Okinawa where her grandfather was head priest. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in East Asian Studies, studied Buddhist imagery at Yale University, and apprenticed with Taro Hattori in Japan. A trained metallurgist Ando uses chemicals and dyes to create the same patterns Japanese sword makers used to give each sword a character all its own.

Ando's most famous work, called After 9/11, can be seen in London's Battersea Park and is a sculpture made from steel recovered from the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11^th attacks. For a more recent project she spent six months making 1,000 hand-painted resin and phosphorescence coated skeleton leaves. Called Orbon it symbolizes the ancient Japanese tradition of folding 1,000 crane leaves to be granted a wish. Orbon was floated for 24 hours on a pond at Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico.


Miya Ando - Changing all the Rules
from The Avant/Garde Diaries on Vimeo.

For her intriguing artwork the descendant of a Japanese Sword builder clan uses two materials, which couldn't be any more different, metal and flowers. More on The Avant/Garde Diaries. The Avant/Garde Diaries is an online interview magazine and global event series initiated by Mercedes-Benz in 2011.

Directed by Takeshi Fukunaga / Cinematography by Ryo Murakami / Music by Ken Kaizu / Special Thanks to The Kitano New York Hotel & Ellie Grace

Observations from the Window 1.21

Today is Inauguration Day, along with Martin Luther King Day, and President Obama will be sworn in yet again followed by the official celebration of the beginning of his second term. Confused because you thought he was sworn in yesterday? Under the Constitution the president automatically begins his term on Jan. 20. This year the date fell on Sunday so President Obama and Vice President Biden followed tradition by being sworn in at a private ceremony. President Reagan did the same in 1985 which was the last time the inaugural fell on a Sunday. Never let it be said that I didn't teach you something.

Yesterday The Telegraph posted a gallery of photos chronicling President Obama's first term which is totally worth looking at. This photo from the 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks just jumped out at me when I saw it. I may have seen it before but I didn't remember it if I did, either way it's just a gorgeous shot. The angles, the broken light falling on the waterfall, the way the leaves frame to top of the shot, it's just one of those photos you look at and nod because you know it's exactly what you would have done in that situation or like to think you would have.

Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy
Tumblr link

Observations from the Coffee Shop 10.23

This morning I was looking at one of my recent OWS photos with a friend when she commented on a button the girl in the shot was wearing. The button said “2planes 3buildings 911wtf?” Now I know I have seen that line before but I didn't have an answer when my friend asked what it meant and all Ash knew was that it was a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Even though I may be superstitious at times and read my horoscope now and than I do try and stay away from wacko conspiracy theories because I don't need any more crap clogging my brain. I did look into this one a bit today because I have a soft spot for 9/11 and I wanted to know the answer to her question.

The 2planes party is easy, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. I found the 3buildings part stands for the twin towers and Building 7 which collapsed during the afternoon of September 11th. Conspiracy theorists seem to use that later collapse to prove that the towers were bought down by a controlled demolition rather than by the airliners. They don't seem to believe that being 400' away from a collapsing 1300' tower would cause enough damage to bring Building 7 down. You might be wondering who would want to do that but I'm not even going to get into it other than to say they believe it was super cabal involving everybody from oil companies, to the CIA, to your local hair dresser's cousin Louie. It was done to justify invading the Middle East and seizing oil fields.

To me the one critical flaw in the whole theory is this. The Bush administration failed at everything it did yet I'm supposed to believe it pulled off and than covered up the greatest conspiracy in the history of the planet? Even if I wanted to I couldn't do it. Along with them the cover up would have had to involve the FDNY, the NYPD, the Port Authority, the FBI, the FAA, NORAD, and on and on. Even scrap yards in the New York City area would have had to be involved because they sold scrap steel before it was all tested as probably they were asked to by the Bush people. Which means Mayor Bloomberg couldn't have been involved because at the time he asked the yards not to sell it.

Omg, I drank the tea, I understand now and I need one of those buttons of my own.

Seriously even conspiracies with a few people are doomed are to fail, like Watergate. The more people you involve in it the more likely it is to fall apart. The amount of people needed for this conspiracy could fill both of the towers so it's just absurd to think this many people could keep a mass murder a secret for this long. Totally effing absurd.

Yet people still believe.

Memories

On the morning of September 11, 2001 I was on my way to a class at Penn State when I first heard news of the attack. I heard a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center and I just naturally thought it has to have been a small prop plane. When I heard the first tower had fallen I didn't believe it, it wasn't possible. I had been there so many times, stood on the top, looked out over the world, and I just couldn't believe bringing it down was humanly possible. I never got to class but sat in the HUB for hours watching the news with hundreds of other students and teachers, for the most part all silent, stunned. Finally I just wandered off to the hockey complex.

I never played field hockey in college but this was my sophomore year and I still helped out with the team because it was a way to keep a stick in my hand and get a good workout. All the days activities had been canceled but the team still seemed to gravitate to Bigler Field as if we we had no where else to go or just belonged there. We sat on the field talking some but mostly thinking and here is where I noticed something that, other than the news itself, is my main memory of the day. It was just a stunningly beautiful day in the mountains. Cool early fall air, a cloudless blue sky, and not a sound to be heard because of the grounding of any aircraft. It was just gorgeous and didn't seem fair, there is no way it should have been such a beautiful day.

A month later in October a friend and I drove up to New York because I wanted to see it myself. As I have a habit of doing I snuck around some barricades and wandered around the area taking photos until I was caught by the National Guard and escorted out. I will never, ever, forget the things I saw that day. I've tried writing about it a few times but words just can't describe what I saw, smelled, or how I felt. I took hundreds of photos while I was there but pretty much have kept them to myself ever since. I decided I wanted to show some as my little memorial to that day and those that died. I picked out some of my favorites, maybe not the best of the lot and far from the best work I have ever done but still my favorites. I think taken together they give the best idea of what I saw.

Ten years later one thing does trouble me. The idea that even though most of the masterminds of the attack are dead the terrorists may have won in the end. I'm 29 and I still remember this country before 9/11, before it was bled by ten years of war, before police carried sub-machine guns, before we began to resemble Orwell's Oceania. Somebody my sister's age has no memory of the time before and and to them it is a completely natural way of living. That may be the saddest thing of all.

the photos - (flickr set) (Picassa album)

Observations on Art 9.9

With the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks just days away it's becoming a little depressing to turn on the news and see it over and over again. To me it's one thing to remember but another to glory in it like a badge of honor as some people seem to be doing. It was the murder of nearly 3,000 people including over 400 emergency personal who lost their lives while trying to save others.

Court sent me this video a bit ago but today it came to me that this would be an awesome way to honor that day ten years ago. Wrap Battery Park in paper and let everybody remember in their own way.


COPENHAGEN PAINT PARTY 2011 // from Yabba Yabba on Vimeo.

Observations

"I will remind the people I love how much they mean to me."
Posted by Brittany Lott

I Will - 9/11 Tribute by Pam Thomas from Steam Films on Vimeo.

911Day.org

Observations on the death of Osama bin Laden, part II

I know this is a rather long post for me I but there is just so much garbage being tossed around now it could have been twice as long. I started to write it yesterday as part of that post but I didn't want to take away from my personal thoughts. I was going to end the whole with the following questions but they don't seem to fit either post so I'm going to put it here. Now that bin Laden is dead what is the reason to be in Afghanistan at all? Isn’t it time to come home before we follow the British and Russian paths out of the Hindu Kush?

And part II ....

One depressing aspect of bin Laden's death is how conservatives have come out to take credit for it. It was because of George Bush's policies or it was because of water-boarding they say. Bush had seven years to catch up with bin Laden and never did. No, it was because of continuing hard work of government agencies and President Obama having the guts to make the call to do it when he was advised not to, my gut tells me Bush wouldn't have done the same. He would have used jets or missiles and wiped out half of Islamabad in the process. I wish this would have happened sooner but thankfully Bush never had that chance.

Still some of the insane talk is more entertaining than other. Condoleezza Rice speaking on FOX News about Bush's bullhorn speech at Ground Zero; "But President Bush had at Ground Zero probably the most important moment maybe in American history." In all of American history, to name a few things that means Gettysburg, July 4th 1776, Pearl Harbor, and a moon landing. Granted it was probably Bush's finest moment as President but it was overshadowed by his 'mission accomplished' speech a year and a half later. Coincidentally bin Laden was killed 8 years to the day after that later speech.

But some of this commentary borders on sheer petty ignorance. Even Rudy Giuliani said "I thought the decisions about getting rid of the body were exactly correct." Yet some would have had it very different. Among them Glen Beck, "I really would have put him in a meat grinder with a pig." And the always charming Michelle Malkin, "They should have fed him to the pigs and not the fishes." Is it any wonder some parts of the world hate us?

Than there are those, too many to name, that believe Bush and not President Obama deserves the credit for the death of bin Laden. Let me remind them of this Bush quote from a press conference on March 13, 2002, just six months after the 9/11 attacks. When asked about bin Laden's whereabouts he answered "I don't know where he is, I’m not concerned about him anymore." Which is precisely the reason why President Obama did do in two years what Bush couldn’t do in seven. It all goes to prove, as Rep. Barney Frank said a few weeks ago, they all seem to live in cloud cuckoo land.

In a presidential debate on October 7, 2008 than candidate Obama said “"We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." Senator John McCain mocked him as being naïve.

Observations on the death of Osama bin Laden

Sunday night was one of those nights that you are always going to remember. I woke up from a nap on the couch to the news that a major announcement was coming from the President, this late on a Sunday night it had to mean something big. Word soon began to leak on twitter but it wasn't official until almost 11:30 when President Obama said "Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children." Even before his speech ended the streets erupted with honking horns and the cheering of people. If anything the sounds I heard as I stood on the roof combined with the photos I was seeing from Times Square reminded me of New Years Eve here.

I wasn't in the city on the day of the attacks but I drove up with a friend about a month after. I took maybe 400 photos (l) while I was there, most of which I have never shown anybody but my family. I snuck around a barricade to get most of the shots, saw the smoke, the dust, the utter destruction, and smelled the terrible smells. I was escorted back to 'safety' by the National Guard who than proceeded to call my dad. I don't think I ever saw him so mad at me because I didn't even tell him I was going there. What I saw are sights that I never will be able to forget. I’ve been back to Ground Zero since and I have seen the new construction but I still see it the way it was that day.

I told that story because yesterday I read and saw some opinions where it was said that we celebrated the death of bin Laden too much. That, especially in New York, we were just showing how the terrorists had won in the way they had changed us. Those who think that have to realize that most of the people out in the street celebrating were my age or younger and 9/11 is the focal point of their lives. It both literally and figuratively changed their lives forever. So many died that day and since that the celebration should have been totally expected. It was a pure natural reaction to learning that our ‘boogeyman’ was gone forever and we were still here. I'm sure the death of Adolf Hitler was celebrated in much the same way.

I fell in love with this city years before when I visited often with my mom. I remember how the feel, the energy, and the art of the city just amazed me. But I also remember first hand what it was like to be here ten years ago. My first thought on seeing the look on people's faces that day was that the city was dying, that it would never be the same ever again, the terrorists had indeed won.

I was wrong.

midday update - A friend emailed me an article from The Washington Post that says a little more about what I was trying to say, Resilient New York takes grim satisfaction in bin Laden’s death. Also I received an email from somebody who wanted to remind me that bin Laden "was in fact the creation of the same military and political establishment that has killed so many people under the pretext of the fight against al-Qaeda." Whatever, 9/11 was a watershed moment, one of those rare moments when what came before and what came after are totally separated. Not for me to decide.