Flags on the facade of the World Financial Center From "Aftermath: Photographs of Ground Zero" by Joel Meyerowitz

8/8/11

Brush Gallery At SLU Marks 9/11 Anniversary With Three Exhibitions

CANTON - The 10th anniversary of events in New York City and Washington on September 11, 2001 will be marked with three exhibitions at the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University. All three will be on campus from August 17 through October 22, and all are open to the public, free of charge.

- When commercial planes struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, much of the world stopped to watch. Iconic photographs and videos saturated the media in the days and weeks that followed, leaving an indelible afterimage on the mind's eye. In the 10 years since the attacks, many contemporary artists have turned their attention to the terrorist acts of 9/11 and the ongoing global impact of the U.S. response. An exhibition titled "Re-framing Terrorism" brings together artists from Canada, France, Germany, Iraq and the U.S. many of whom pursue a desire to literally "re-frame" the attacks, breaking reliance on the popular media imagery that permeates our visual associations with the event. Others examine the U.S. response, frequently called "counter-terrorism" by politicians and the media, to the nascent threat of terror. Collectively, the artists ask viewers to confront challenging questions.

A discussion with Wafaa Bilal, one of the artists whose work appears in "Re-framing Terrorism," on Thursday, October 6, at 7 p.m. in Room 123 of the Griffiths Arts Center. Iraqi-born Bilal's work is informed by his home in the "comfort zone" of the U.S. and his consciousness of the "conflict zone" in Iraq. Many of Bilal's projects transform the typically passive experience of viewing art into a participatory event. His interactive performance pieces have received overwhelming worldwide attention, sparked provocative online debates, and earned him recognition as the Chicago Tribune's Artist of the Year.

- "Aftermath: Photographs of Ground Zero" by Joel Meyerowitz is an exhibition of 22 photographs drawn from an extraordinary archive of pictures that is the only existing photographic record of Ground Zero after the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Fenced off and classified as a crime scene, the area was closed to all photographers, and only scant information was available about the activities in the guarded enclosure that became known as "the forbidden city." Through sheer persistence involving daily acts of resourcefulness and defiance, Meyerowitz became the sole photographer to have continued access to the site and describe its transformation over the ensuing nine months, from a place of total devastation to cleared bedrock.

- Selections from "The Day Our World Changed: Children's Art of 9/11," will be exhibited on the lower level of Owen D. Young Library. The New York University Child Study Center collected 800 artworks by children in the New York metropolitan area, 83 of which were exhibited in 2002 at the Museum of the City of New York. The works selected for this exhibition, courtesy of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, come from 14 artists who were between eight and 13 years old, the same ages that current St. Lawrence students were in 2001. Through drawing, painting and collage, these young artists demonstrate a remarkable ability to convey powerful and vacillating emotions: anger and confusion, grief and mourning, healing and hope.

For information or to arrange individual or group tours, contact the gallery at 315-229-5174.

More about the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery

St. Lawrence alumni lost on September 11, 2001