September 11 at PS1

Dr. Eric Berne (1910-1970), psychiatrist and founder of transactional analysis

Describes in his book: “games people play”, a game called ‘kick me’.

In this game, the person acts most of the time as a victim that constantly remind us not to kick him, but in reality is acting as a provocateur that pushes and pushes until he or she crosses the limits of tolerance, provoking a strong reaction: getting kicked. At this point another games starts called ‘why this has to happen to me’, which may generate enough serious thoughts and constructive criticism to actually generate change, in the form of another game called ‘what did I do to deserve this’, which is in short, a position of reflection on the player personal actions.

Somehow, the description of this psychological game reminded me of the events that took place around September 11, 2001. After the attack, George Bush in his speech that night about the attack said:

-“Americans are asking, why do they hate us?

-They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other” (George Bush, September 11, 2001)

The next day, I remember listening to BBC interviewing people in the streets and the answers to the same questions were much different than that. Most people agreed on both, that was an accident waiting to happen (the USA has been playing the kick me game for a while) and that in spite of the provocations, it was unjustifiable; indeed it was, as many violent acts are.

In recent history, the US only has had two attacks on its own land: Pearl Harbor in the morning of December 7, 1941, and the Twin Towers in September 11, 2001. Both, have been said to be known by the government and let happen in order to initiate war. After all, war is a business as lucrative as oil, but then again, there will always be conspiracy theories and denial when we cannot deal with reality.

Conspiracy or not, denial or not, the causes, we will never know but the facts are there and they are tragic.

In the 10th anniversary of the attack, a relative low profile has been maintained, particularly in art institutions in NYC, which is surprising, for an event that impacted the entire nation heavily, justified political, military and security decisions world wide that even allowed the breach of human/legal rights in the name of the war on terror, and was witnessed by an estimated of 2 billion people (becoming the most televised news to date).

Never the less, The Metropolitan had a small commemoration of the attack with the 9/11 Peace Story Quilt by faith Ringgold; the Brooklyn Museum showed pieces from their permanent collection with no relation with the event whatsoever, other than the fact that that collection served as a relieve, on September 12,2001, for all the people in the area; the Whitney did not even acknowledge it.

 The MoMA though, in its extension in Queens, PS1, put together a very complete show, commensurable with the importance of the attack,  simply called: September 11. It included major artist such as: Janet Cardiff, John Chamberlain, Sarah Charlesworth, Christo, Jeremy Deller, Thomas Demand, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jens Haaning, Susan Hiller, Roger Hiorns, Thomas Hirschhorn, Ellsworth Kelly, Barbara Kruger, Mark Lombardi, Gordon Matta-Clark, Willem de Rooij, James Turrell, Stephen Vitiello, John Lennon & Yoko Ono, etc

Interesting enough, the curatorship decided to feature “ Art made in the context removed from 9/11”, meaning, all of them made prior 9/11. This curatorial position talks about how  9/11, becoming part of the collective memory, changed the way we see the world, changing our set of associations. But also, regretfully, this exhibit is there to prove that history repeats itself and that in spite of all the pain produced by hatred and violence, they  continue to exist, and art continues to be a palliative that helps to deal with the issues related with them.

“ Art has a long and complex history of engaging with violence and catastrophe, and we often turn to it to help make sense of trauma”.

In the days around 9/11, the question of how would the artist respond to the attack was raised once again, as Arthur Danto explains in his article “Art after 9/11”. Artist did not know any better how to deal with it, than any other person. They were, as everyone else, dealing with the shock of the circumstances.

In circumstances like this one, gestures are able to communicate more effectively, in their meaning, than words. So spontaneous artistic expressions populated NY, and other cities of the globe, as an act of empathy and compassion: flowers, shrines, candles, altars, pictures, messages, etc.

What is interesting about this exhibit and its curatorial position is the fact that it looks at the past art examples to give meaning to the present accomplishing two things:  removing the public from direct exposure to the pain of  9/11 (a delicate geture respect)  and,  by indirectly triggering memories referring to ‘the pain of others’ in similar circumstances it creates  a link that places the tragic events of 9/11, not in the local but in the global and historic context. Giving life and death a perspective that is common to a larger demographic sample.

Barbara Kruger piece in the show,  (Untitled (Questions), 1991) questioned the very core of Bush’s answer.

An American flag, whose white stripes are made by a list of questions about freedom.

The artwork, from 1991, is a form of political activism that still current.  Having it as part of the show, re states its relevance and asks us to reflect:

Who speaks? Who is silenced? 

Is there really freedom of religion? Of speech? Freedom to disagree with each other?

Other being the government, the corporations, the main institutions holding power.

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Questions), 1991.

A country that just made legal the corporate sponsorship to political campaigns, is really democratic any more? When Coca-Cola Esso, Verizon, etc might just make it (next period) to the letter head of the White House correspondence….. These were the questions were being raise then and they remain valid now.

The Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s piece "Untitled" (The End), on display on the show, consist of a pile of paper, a simple heavily outlined rectangle with nothing on it, that visitors were invited to take, contributing to the slow disappearance of the sculpture. This 'removable installation’ was used as a metaphor for the process of dying. Although the piece is from 1990, after 9/11 we could not help but to associate the pile of rectangular paper with the footprint of the disappeared twin towers, and the gesture of taking one sheets makes the dialogue possible, becoming a very powerful statement and poetic gesture.

Similarly, what Jem Cohen’s Little Flags-a 8mm black and white  6min.video- brings first, is the memory of September 11 debris on the streets, is only after you look carefully that you realize that in fact is just paper on the streets of lower Manhattan  after a Military parade, filmed in 2000.

The problem of destructiveness has been a constant element along human history as if it was just an unavoidable component of human nature. In seeing the pain of others (in the multiple pieces of that refer to events un related with 9/11) we can relate to the rest of the world in a general level and also connect with the event that closer to our skin, in a personal level, because we can find a common ground. At the same time given the recurrence of the events/and art associate with them we are forced to re-visit common questions about freedom, human rights, death, power, etc. Willem de Rooij piece, by simply displaying newspaper images of “ Riots, Protest, Mourning and Commemoration” makes this point very clear.

Willem de Rooij. Index: Riots, Protest, Mourning and Commemoration (as represented in newspapers, January 2000-July 2002) (detail). 2003

And so are the multiple conflicts that the war on terror brought to the earth. We, as humans, are always face with duality: life and death, war and peace, good and evil…we struggle to keep a balance.

The exhibit is a fantastic example of how we can get more involved by, ironically, removing ourselves and taking the place of others.