September 11 @ MoMA PS1

 This was one of my favorite pieces because it displays the bright colors of our precocious nation.

Now Showing @ Moma PS1 through January 9th, 2012

 

George Segal - American artist - 1924-2000 

'Woman on a park Bench' 1998 (bronze w/ white patina & metal bench)

         

In the room seen above one could reminisce about September 11th 2011, as we see various pieces incorporated into a brightly-lit room. There is a woman seated carelessly on a bench minding her own business. She holds dearly to her purse and seems as if she were about to smile, but not quite. There is material scattered along the center of the floor which resembles ashes done by Roger Hiorns a British artist born in 1978. It is an 'atomized passenger aircraft engine' and he left his work Untitled. In addition, the theme from Patriot (a solo by Mark O'Connor) can be heard playing in the background to add to the mood. The audio is 6:40 minutes long and it was incorporated by John Williams an American artist born in 1932.

 Filmmaker Jem Cohen's addition to the show is in the form of a 6:00 minute video with sound & in black and white. Little Flags (1991-2000) is an excerpt of a film made by Cohen who was recording a parade that was lead along Broadway to celebrate the end of the Golf War. In the film we can observe the crowd maneuvering around lower Manhattan in a sward of paper. Looking at the picture above (from the film) we can see the similarities between the film and the city on that September 11, 2001 morning.


Another piece (not shown) is a canopy of black bunting which welcomes the visitors to the 2nd floor of the museum. It was created in 2001 by Fiona Banner an English artist born in 1966 by using vinyl and rope. Black Bunting (2008) can be interpreted as a touch of celebration to this one-decade-after tribute without robbing from the mourning sensation implied by the color black.

Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity

Lee Ufan is a Korean artist-philosopher whose work was on exhibition for the first time in the United States at the Solomon Guggenheim Museum. This man has made it his business to bring nature into non-traditional spaces. He uses his philosophical background to invoke tranquility and gentleness into normally thought of as rough materials. He is fond of using stones beside steel (as seen below) and hard edges beside soft textures like cotton and fabric. Another of his great techniques involve using his brush while full of paint and tapping the canvas until the medium runs out. It creates a very interesting pattern which can be a metaphor for how uncertain we are about life itself and really not knowing where it might lead us. The bottom-most picture shows large brush strokes featuring a very difficult to make value scale which the artist achieves by layering. These same squares can be appreciated on a wall in a symmetric room at the museum in which the artist intentionally chooses to place the shapes on the sides of the wall instead of the center. Honoring nature's asymmetry in a mathematically square room.

Relatum (formerly Phenomena & Perception B) 1968/2011, steel, glass & stone

Relatum - residence, 1988. steel & stones