At the time of the World Trade Center tragedy, the participating artists -- Simon Aldridge, Naomi Ben-Shahar, Monika Bravo, Laurie Halsey Brown, Justine Cooper, Lucky Debellevue, Carola Dertnig, Mahmoud Hamadani, Kara Hammond, Jeff Konigsberg, Motonobu Kurokawa, Geraldine Lau, Nathan See, and Hyungsub Shin -- were all artists in residence in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's World Views program on the 92nd floor of One World Trade Center. Many of them lost all or a substantial amount of their work.

Presented by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) and the New Museum, the exhibition is dedicated to World Views resident artist Michael Richards, killed while working in his studio on the morning of September 11, 2001.

Some of the artists remade lost works for the exhibition. Kara Hammond recreated a series of drawings of interiors of the World Trade Center, mostly from memory. Monika Bravo, Laurie Halsey Brown, and Naomi Ben-Shahar created new work using video footage created inside the Trade Center -- of now non-existent interior spaces, of a party organized on the 91st floor on the night of September 4th, of the views from their studio windows.

There are difficulties and emotional issues involved in recreating destroyed work, in reconceptualizating work which had been in progress but of which nothing now remains, Moukhtar Kocache, Director of Visual and Media Arts at LMCC, observed.

In addition to recreating on a different scale, in a short time frame, the artists "have had to balance intellectual, moral, and ethical parameters in light of the disaster and the loss of one of their colleagues," he said.

The work which Justine Cooper lost on September 11 involved making a synthetic gene of the twin towers. Using synthetic DNA, liquid crystal glass panels, and proximity sensors, her current installation at the New Museum was created by translating the light patterns of Tower One of the World Trade Center into the base pairs of guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine, (G.A.T.C.) the building blocks of DNA. She had originally envisioned that the final piece would involve taking the synthetic gene she had made, sequencing it in an actual DNA sequencer, then knitting that pattern with wool. "Knitting patterns look like DNA microsatellites," she explained. "Plus the knitting machine I was using, used punchcards, like the first computers did. So I was trying to layer these systems of translation and combine that, to a degree, with the idea of creation."

As a part of the World Views program, at the end of each five-month residency cycle the public was invited to a series of special events culminating with a two-day Open Studio exhibition in the studio space. In response to this component of the program, the World Views Open Studio exhibition has created an environment similar to the Open Studios weekend. The participating artists and LMCC staff were available at the New Museum on the opening day, and other events which introduce the public to the artists, their works, and the program are planned throughout the exhibition, which runs through January 13, 2002.

LONG, HARD STARE, Simon Aldridge's work in the New Museum exhibition, is made of 500 translucent plastic tubes, hanging in an eight foot square cube which captures clouds of fluorescent orange construction paint. Long, Hard Stare is the second in a series of sculptural works.

Made in the 92nd floor studios in the World Trade Center, and intended to hang there, the first piece in the series, HOT FUN IN THE SUMMERTIME, was destroyed on September 11.

Aldridge describes the destroyed work as "an orange cloud suspended in mid air by 400 clear plastic rods hung from above in an 8' x 8' grid." In August, 2001, the month before the attack, it was exhibited in the exhibition GROUNDZERO01.

"Working in the twin towers was a remarkable experience because of the buildings, but I also felt that our particular group was unusually cohesive, as people and as artists," Aldridge told Arts Wire. "Dealing with a tragedy like this has been much easier when it is shared with others. We all felt strongly that we would like to complete our residency somehow. "

Aldridge had the space next to Michael Richards on the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center, and he remembers how much he enjoyed working with Michael. "It was a lot of fun making my work along side him," he said.

"In the September 11th disaster, LMCC lost its administrative offices in Five World Trade Center, its outdoor performance venue on the World Trade Center Plaza, and its exhibition and studio space for artists," said LMCC Executive Director Liz Thompson. But she emphasized that "We are committed to rebuilding and continuing support for working artists, and appreciate this opportunity to present this exhibition with the New Museum."

LMCC's mission -- to provide support for individual artists and arts organizations while fostering public participation in the arts through free events in the performing, visual and new media arts -- is of continuing and vital importance in the wake of the World Trade Center disaster, and the organization is proactively continuing its commitment to serving artists and audiences in its financial district headquarters and throughout the diverse neighborhoods and cultural communities of Manhattan.

LMCC wishes to thank to the many groups and individuals throughout the country who have given support for the resident artists, to continue the World Views program, and to make the World Views Open Studio exhibition possible, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, GAle GAtes et al., Not Still Art and the Micro Museum, Tri-State Artists Association of West Virginia, Carroll County Arts Council of Maryland, Brighthill Press, Ohio Independent Film Festival, Whit Press of Seattle, Feel Better Sidewalk Sale, Stephen Filler, Annette Rusin, and many others.

They also express their gratitude for the much-needed support they have received following the World Trade Center disaster from Philip Morris Companies, France Telecom, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Morgan Stanley, Jerome Foundation, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Commercial Real Estate Women, (CREW) and many other caring individuals and groups throughout the country.

"It is crucial for cultural institutions to work together now and we felt it was important to support a vital downtown arts institution in need," said New Museum Henry Luce III Director Lisa Phillips.

Sources/resources:

THE NEW MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART -- http://www.newmuseum.org

THE LOWER MANHATTAN CULTURAL COUNCIL (LMCC) -- http://www.lmcc.net

"Many Artists in LMCC World Views Program Lost all Their Work; But Group Pulls Together to Mourn Those Who Died and to Dialogue about the Future"
Arts Wire CURRENT -- http://www.artswire.org/current/2001/cur100201.html#news1
October 2, 2001
This article details the artists, their work, and their Sept 11 losses

With its inclusive membership mix of educators in both art history and studio art fields, of artists, arts writers, arts administrators and curators, CAA panels explore many facets of the state of the visual arts and culture today:

from

ETHICS IN THE ART WORLD, chaired by Gail Levin, Baruch College the Graduate Center of The City University of New York, which will address issues such as concern over the selection and funding of museum exhibitions

to

THE QUEST FOR COMMUNITY RENEWAL AND THE TRANSCENDING POWER OF ART, chaired by Lily Yeh, Village of the Arts and Humanities and Donald C. Kelly, Donald C. Kelly & Associates, which will focus on "the power of art to build transcending relationships between people and the land, people and each other, and people and their shared heritage."

Additionally, throughout the conference, Philadelphia's rich arts traditions will be highlighted in sessions about or including the artists, arts organizations, museums, art schools, and architecture of the city, such as A QUESTION OF PLACE: PHILADELPHIA'S ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE, chaired by Sylvia Yount, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which will explore Philadelphia's distinctive arts role and legacy, addressing historical and contemporary issues of regional practice and identity as they influence and are influenced by artists and institutions.

Penny Balkin Bach, who directs the Philadelphia-based Fairmount Park Art Association, will chair a public art session: THE PATH AND THE PURPOSE: TRAVERSING THE MINEFIELD OF PUBLIC ART. The participants' very different takes on public art are both Philadelphia connected and nationally relevant.

Put together just after and influenced by the events of September 11, this session considers how changes in the way we see the world may reflect changes in the world of public art.

The artists included in this panel -- Peggy Diggs, Mei-ling Hom, Jody Pinto, and Mierle Ukeles -- all have a public art connection to Philadelphia. For instance, Mei-ling Hom's ChinaWedge is installed in the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the site of the 2001 CAA Conference, and Mierle Ukeles is currently working on a project for Schuylkill River Park.

In New York City, the debris from the World Trade Center is being sent to Fresh Kills Landfill, a site where Ukeles will be working (on long-range adaptation for public use) for the next ten years.

"In recent years, public art has been shaped by societal changes, including the availability of new materials and technologies, concern for the environment and public space, the advent of large-scale civic development, and the desire to reach out to diverse communities. In response, artists have been seeking ways to make public space more conceptually interesting, more perceptually engaging, more useful, and more meaningful. The obstacles to the successful resolution of public art, however, are strewn in front of the artist like a minefield," Penny Balkin Bach writes in the CAA Program to introduce the session.

Questions addressed include: "Is it possible to negotiate the technical and bureaucratic maze and still create work that is personally satisfying and of lasting civic and cultural significance? Does innovative work slowly loose its punch and meaning (or risk rejection)? Is permanent public art an anachronism and should it be abandoned in favor of the temporary?"

In response, artist Jody Pinto will focus on the challenges inherent in her method.

Pinto's work began in the 1970's with "unofficial" sites but now she generally works on collaborative large-scale projects -- "official" sites, with agencies, architects, landscape architects, and "client groups" such as the Santa Monica Beach Improvement Group Project where she worked in collaboration with landscape architect Ignacio Bunster-Ossa on an extended design that included landscape and irrigation, the refurbishment of historic Muscle Beach, and the creation of new local landmarks.

"I consistently examine the site's past and present appearance, consider a site's history and social function, and often seek ways to restore sites that have been 'wounded' in some way," she notes in the CAA Conference program. She will talk about both the satisfying projects and about "a lingering public art 'casualty'," the Central Artery/Tunnel project in Boston, which after four "tortured" years of work, was discarded.

In a description of her presentation, "In Defense of the Temporary," artist Peggy Diggs, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, writes:

"I propose that the purpose of temporary public art is to serve as an excuse for conversations, a trigger. The work may acknowledge problems at a relevant site of their occurrence; it can be designed with knowledgeable partners from the 'issue community;' it can be a forum for the populace normally spoken TO. Particularly as work is being designed for the internet, the presentations and discussions by citizens can hearken back to a more democratic 'agora,' while including more members of the culture in its conversations."

Patricia Phillips, State University of New York at New Paltz, will bring the critic's point of view into the discourse.

"The stories unfold of works removed, abandoned, and neglected," she writes in the program. "Public art is 'owned' by everyone and no one. People may share a stake in it, but few feel any responsibility for it. Perhaps that it exists at all - that some people choose to support, produce, and write about it - confirms the efficacy of stubborn beliefs or imponderable miracles."

Art forms and their contemporary relevance, artmaking strategies, and issues of content are central issues in CAA 2002 -- including contemporary art forms in relation to their historical contexts and in relation to each other -- from THE CRAFTS IDEAL (Chairs: Susie Brandt and Sharon Church, Crafts Dept., The University of the Arts, Philadelphia) which will examine the role of traditional handcrafts in postindustrial and postmodern culture to THE SIGNAL, (Chairs: Connie Coleman and Alan Powell, The University of the Arts) which will explore the inherent qualities which distinguish video art from other art forms.

A few of this year's many sessions which explore art forms and content are:

FLUXUS AND DUCHAMP
Chair: Geoffrey Hendricks, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University
40 years of Fluxus artmaking -- beginning with the Fluxus International Festival of Very New Music in Germany, focusing on the works of Marcel Duchamp in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and including their influence on new generations of artists -- will be explored in this Performance Art Session.

INSTALLATION ART
Chair: Robert Silberman, Dept. of Art History, University of Minnesota
"....It is almost as if installation has become such a familiar part of the artistic landscape that it no longer stands out," the session description states. The session will address defining installation art and constructing its history in relation to painting, sculpture, performance, architecture, and other forms.

VIGOR: NEW TERRITORIES IN PAINTING
Chair: Jackie Tileston, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
"....This panel will investigate the ongoing vitality of painting--despite reports of its multiple deaths and rebirths--as largely due to its ability to absorb, ingest, and transform multiple sources.... the field of painting has become an ever-changing, happily-corruptible field of creative exploration by allowing in such influences. How does an artist's work reflect these ideas? How are artists using other fields of inquiry in the studio...What happens when a person thinks like a painter and takes that approach into different realms of work, or vice versa?"

Plus

THE AUTOMATON, THE HOMUNCULUS, AND OTHER ARTIFICIAL BEINGS: TOWARD AN INTERDISCIPLINARY HISTORY
Chairs; Elizabeth King, School of the Arts, Dept. of Sculpture, Virginia Commonwealth University, and W. David Todd, National Museum of American History, The Smithsonian Institution

BOOK ARTS: THE ARTIST AS WRITER/THE WRITER AS ARTIST
Chair: Patricia M. Smith, The University of the Arts

CONTAINMENT, CONFLICT, AND CONTROL: REVISITING THE VISUAL CULTURE OF THE COLD WAR
Chair: David McCarthy, Dept. of Art, Rhodes College, Memphis, TN

DEFINING ECOFEMINIST ART
Chairs: Deborah Mathew, Art Dept, University of Wyoming and Duston Spear, Pound Ridge, NY

HOW DO LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDERED ARTISTS ADDRESS THE NUDE?
Chairs: Tee A. Corinne, Artist, Wolf Creek, OR and Sherman Clarke, New York University Libraries

JEWISH ART: THE VIEW FROM WITHIN
Chair: Diane Wolfthal, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

THE RELEVANCE OF CORPOREALITY IN THE DOMAIN OF ELECTRONIC ART AND NEW MEDIA
Chair: Barbara L. Miller, Art Department, Western Washington University

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE: PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE PARANORMAL
Chair: Mark Alice Durant and Jane D. Marsching, Syracuse University

and much more.

The education of artists and arts professionals, career paths, arts writing, and exhibition venues will also be addressed in depth at CAA 2002.

Among many others, sessions will include:

HAS THE MASTER OF FINE ARTS OUTLIVED ITS USEFULNESS AS A TERMINAL DEGREE?, PART 2
Chair: Bruce Bobick, Dept. of Art, State University of West Georgia
Continuing a discussion on the Master of Fine Arts degree that originated at last year's Annual Conference in Chicago, this session will explore both the pros and cons of recognizing the M.F.A. as the terminal degree for the teaching of studio art at the college and university level.

MUSEUMS AND GLOBALIZATION
Chairs: Ruth E. Iskin, University of British Columbia, Fine Arts, Green College, Vancouver, BC and Saloni Mathur, University of California, Los Angeles
"The past decade has witnessed a powerful impact of economic globalization on art and culture. At the same time, the context for museums in contemporary society has undergone radical change, and a critical body of literature known as 'the new museology' has emerged. Taking these developments into account, this session will examine the changing role of museums in relation to the processes of globalization and postcolonial social change...."

HOW TO KEEP YOUR ART OUT OF GARAGE SALES AFTER YOU'RE GONE
CHairs: Mary Dritschel, Artist, Independent Curator and Scholar, Chicago; and Virginia Maksymowicz, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA
"A great percentage of the work that artists produce is never sold and remains in their personal collection. But what happens after an artist's death? Even with careful planning, artists can unwittingly create a maelstrom of ill feeling and litigation among their heirs and dealers. This session will explore options open to artists in planning their estates, including legal matters, tax liabilities, gifts to institutions, creation of trusts, documentation archives, and emotional and interpersonal issues."

Plus

ARCHITECTURE PERIODICALS, IN PRACTICE AND AS HISTORY
Chairs: Gabrielle Esperdy, Pratt Institute School of Architecture: and Andy Shanken, Oberlin College

ART CRITICS AND ART CRITICISM IN CHICANO/A, LATINO/A, AND LATIN AMERICAN ART
Chairs: Florencia Bazzano-Nelson, School of Art and Design, Georgia State University, and Holly Barnet-Sanchez, Dept. of Art and Art History, University of New Mexico

BIOGRAPHY, THE WRITTEN WORD, AND PACIFIC ARTISTS: MULTIVALENT VIEWS OF HISTORY AND THE INDIVIDUAL
Chairs: Hilary L. Scothorn, Florida State University; and Karen Stevenson, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

DISTANCE-EDUCATION STUDIO-ART COURSES IN U.S. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES: IS THERE A FUTURE?
Chair: Gary Cassidy, George Mason University and Northern Virginia Community College

"The need to amplify our voices became increasingly urgent this fall in light of the enormous trauma of September 11," writes artist Ellen K. Levy, School of Visual Arts, New York, to introduce the CAA 2002 session she is chairing on ADJUSTING THE VOLUME AMPLIFYING ARTISTS VOICES WITHIN AND OUTSIDE THE ART COMMUNITY. "The prior resolve held by many artists to engage public issues on multiple fronts has been strengthened, collaboratively and individually and through both artwork and political activities."

In the altered post- September 11 environment, an environment where artists may not necessarily be in agreement with their audiences, this session will explore art and artists' lives as vehicles of change and reflection.

"Clearly these political topics have a heightened relevance in light of the current, looming infringements on civil liberties, (referring to secret military tribunes) Ellen Levy noted. "However, even apart from such pressing concerns, many artists have a need (for their art or for themselves) to intersect meaningfully with the world and be heard outside the confines of the art community. Examples of activist groups from the recent past would include PADD, WAC, and ACT UP"

Emphasizing that artists have always donned roles of social critics, and the university has typically spawned activists," she describes the panelists she selected as each approaching political activism in new ways. These panelists -- Nina Felshin, Director Zilka Gallery at Wesleyan University, Connecticut; ("The Spirit of Art as Activism") Nato Thompson, University of Chicago, Illinois; (Department of Space and Land Reclamation) Tim Rollins, teacher South Bronx; (Ideological Battlescenes) and Krzysztof Wodiczko, M.I.T (Speaking Through Monuments) -- will present diverse artistic models of political activity, including and community-centered artmaking and global networking.

The discussant is Suzanne Anker, Chair Art History School of Visual Arts, New York

"What is most relevant for me in the notion of `activist art' is the goal of `activating', that is, animating, awakening back to life, both our monuments and the residents of the cities they inhabit," artist Krzysztof Wodiczko writes in the program notes. "The blank facades of our public edifices or memorials, silent witnesses to present-day injustices, face silent survivors and victims living in their shadows. My recent monumental projections have come to center on activating the speaking of those people, survivors of trauma past and present, who would otherwise also remain melancholic monuments to themselves."

Wodiczko will present brief video extracts these projections, to "illustrate how present-day survivors can use historic public structures as `transitional objects', therapeutic vehicles for healing traumatic wounds."

Sources/resources:

COLLEGE ART ASSOCIATION -- http://www.collegeart.org
Note that this review covers only a few of the multiple sessions and programs. Readers are urged to visit the CAA website at to follow conference information and updates

FAIRFAX, VA -- Coordinated by Paula Crawford, David Chung, and Tom Ashcraft, George Mason University, Art & Visual Technology Department, RESPONSE, an exhibition of art organized as a collective reaction to the September 11th attack on New York and Washington, brings together student work from four schools in the Washington, DC area. The exhibition was produced in collaboration with the Corcoran College of Art & Design and the art departments of Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Maryland at College Park.

As Guest Curators to the gallery program, Paula Crawford and David Chung were in the process of preparing an exhibition of painting when the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington occurred. Afterwards -- in direct response to the profoundly changed world view reflected in the campus environment -- the exhibition was rethought and reorganized.

Tom Ashcraft joined the curatorial team. Other area schools were contacted, and Kendall Buster of the Corcoran College of Art and Design, John Ruppert of the University of Maryland at College Park, and Elizabeth King of Virginia Commonwealth University helped to coordinate the exhibition.

"As art is informed by its historical context, so too may be its producers," Paula Crawford states in the exhibition documentation. "Many of the young artists participating in Response were born into the decadent eighties, children during the Gulf (television) War, and came of age in the prosperous nineties, an Alexandrine period whose established art was often marked by the overblown presentation of trivial content. Bemoaned by some professors and critics for their comfortable affinity with banality and ennui, they have been praised by others as quintessentially postmodern. Indeed it may be that these seemingly contradictory assessments belong to the times themselves, which this generation of artists honestly expresses and documents."

Among the works in Response, some reflect altered perceptions in their creative process. For instance, Tacie Jone's seven foot high painting of a firefighter was begun earlier this year as a portrait of a working man. Informed by the events of September 11, the worker was transformed into a heroic firefighter.

Some layer elements of danger in symbols previously differently perceived. For instance, Justin Barrows' and Matthew Sutton's installation of hundreds of white paper airplanes might have been reminiscent of Reiko Goto's 1989 installation of hundreds of white origami cranes, but in Post September 11, the impact is ominously different -- as is the impact of the small dishes of innocuous white powders, such as cornstarch and salt, which Mark Stark places on the floor in his installation with the (appropriated from Malevich) title WHITE ON WHITE. Aline Shkurovich's sound work USEFUL DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS is a tape recorded reading of the dictionary definitions of recontextualized words, such as "airplane" and "terrorist".

Some works in the exhibition are a direct, personal response to the destruction and murders. Robert Adam Malin's drawing NOETH is described as "a tender portrait of a friend lost in the Pentagon. At first glance, it appears a simple drawing in brown ink. But in fact, it's drawn in blood, oxidized into brown on white paper."

"Other artists explore the metonymic as it relates to the poignantly material," curator Paula Crawford notes. "Brandon Campbell's Gas Mask, a sculpture heavily constructed of steel and leather, speaks to recent fears of chemical war attack. At the same time it links them to an image from the Gulf War, made ubiquitous by Isaac Stern's gas masked violin performance in Israel during a scud missile attack, and later revisited by Ida Applebroog in a painting. In a similar vein, Steve Elliott's Recoil, an aluminum plate shot ong artists to find their voices within it," Paula Crawford states.

Sources/resources:

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY -- http://www.gmu.edu
Paula Crawford , Assistant Professor; Associate Chair, Coordinator of Painting & Drawing; (703) 993-8823; pcrawfo1@gmu.edu

The artists in the show are:
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: Siegfried Bruner, Brandon Campbell Matthew Cain, Patricia Cassidy, Rebecca Chase, Hathaivong Chunchumnein, Jack Crowley, Andrew Stubbs Johnston, Tacie Jones, Judy Kim, Heather MacDonald, Jim McLean, Peter Petrine, and Huda Totonj
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: Virginia Arrisueno, Bonnie Crawford Steve Elliott, Brandon Friend, Ben Piwowar, Mark Stark FROM CORCORAN COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN: Olivia Allamand, Noah Angell, Justin Barrows & Matthew Sutton, Breck Bronson, Breck Bronson & Dan Wilke, Claude Burgett, Amanda Champ, Reniel Diaz and Jennifer Page, Robert Adam Malin, Aline Shkurovich
VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY: Fumi Sato, Nasar Al-Rifafi, Bill Shively, Frank Lortscher