Art and 9/11

I first heard snippets of Steve Reich's WTC 9/11 with the Kronos Quartet on Performance Today while driving to the pool for my mid-morning swim.  After playing a few minutes of the piece, Fred Child went on to defend the use of the cover picture which had, apparently, been under critical attack.

I always think it interesting when controversy erupts over images, so after swimming I googled it to see what the whole hoopla was about. It was about this:



I thought the photograph was beautiful and poignant and wrote to Child to thank him for defending it.  He wrote back.  The following is the exchange:

 Hi Katya,

Thanks for your thoughtful email -- I very much appreciate your distinction between "beautiful" and "pretty."  I hear from some listeners who only want to hear pretty music.  To me, that's a rather silly limitation on the full expressive power of the art form.  And I agree, Steve Reich's piece brings us face to face with the realities of that awful day.  We may not want to remember, but we can NEVER forget.

All the best,

Fred Child

Host of Performance Today

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Q: Your question:

A: Dear Fred,

Thanks for playing snippets of Steve Reich’s WTC 9/11 disc. And thanks for defending the cover photo. People who call it “sensational” seem to be resorting to a really annoying clichéd reaction. The same kind of reaction in which one claims not to look at a roadside accident on the grounds that they are “above that sort of thing”. Or maybe, if I think of it more charitably, they just don’t want to face the reality that the attackers were not merely bound on attacking the United States, but they were bound on doing it, precisely, sensationally. Any depiction of the attacks has to be able to stand up to that and overcome it. This cover does that. It is beautiful; and that is not to say that it is pretty. The manipulation of the original picture seems to invoke the right amount of distance between now and the event to allow us to face it again. And we must keep facing it, lest we forget. And we can’t forget. Reich’s album will be one more way to remember. The snippe ts I heard of the music were really beautiful (again, not pretty) and haunting. And the little you played of it took me right back to that horrible day; certainly not a good thing, but one we must forever revisit.

Thanks,
Katya Cohen

Q: May American Public Media send you e-mail regarding its programs or Web sites?
A: Yes

Well, 9/11/11 has arrived.  The clock ticked 8am and the sounds emanating from my radio turned, like Cinderella's chariot to pumpkin, from classical music to talk.  NPR informed me that they would, all day, be transmitting, live, the rituals of remembrance engaged in today by western nations (I think they said “all over the world”).  I’m not one for rituals, so I suppose this blog is my way of doing it... sort of.

When I heard Child's commentary on the radio, I thought the argument over the cover was over; but apparently it wasn't.  It seems that the controversy over Reich's album cover has kept going and he finally opted for changing the cover to this:

People, all kinds of people (and censorship, which comes in all forms and degrees), will never cease to amaze and, yes, enrage me.

Remember.

gibberish quote of the day

ART AS RESEARCH, RESEARCH AS ART: This is a powerful new force in contemporary culture, its development partly driven by a momentous shift in art education, where scholarly methodologies and knowledge production are increasingly emphasized.
Roelstraete, Dieter. Forest for the Trees. Artforum September 2011: 322-327


Notice the use of the word "momentous".  Seriously, nothing about art education can possibly be seen as momentous at this moment in history.  Of course, I might be proven very wrong in the future; but I think the Arab Spring, the turmoil with the European Union, the possible dissolution of the Euro, and the laying of the ground for a prolonged period of American stagnation might prove to be a little more "momentous".  Moreover, any art driven by shifts in "art education" should be viewed with extreme suspicion.


...not to mention that this is by no means a new trend- I've been reading and seeing "art as research" (which all too often looks like bad art and in no way resembles good research) for years now; maybe art educators just picked up on it...