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Statement
From around 1998 until early 2001, I worked on a stop-action animation using plasticene, a claymation. In 2001 I took a break from the arduous process of animating and never finished the piece. One of the last vignettes I made showed a tower emerging out of water, then rising up, transforming into elongated colored cubes. And then toppling over and being swallowed by a rogue wave, disappearing absolutely below the surface of the water. Depsite the fact that it is a short and playful sequence, it has always seemed to me to be prescient of the twin towers toppling to the ground. Few people notice this, but, to me, I can’t help but find it remarkable that a few months before the towers were knocked over in Lower Manhattan, I was painstakingly knocking over a toy tower in my studio.
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Press Release
The gallery’s first show is the third incarnation of Matt Freedman’s evolving Twin Twin project, which was installed at Vertextlist in 2005 and Pierogi in 2006.
So far, the project has consisted of hundreds of everyday objects that, to Freedman, bear ghostly resemblances to the two fallen towers of the World Trade Center. The collection includes everything from modeled objects, to furniture, toys, the grating on an air conditioner and the scar on a boy’s knee.
For this installation Freedman has extended the scope of the experiment and invited artist friends who are familiar with this project and share his complicated relationship with that day to contribute a piece to the collection. In his invitation to the artists he wrote:
“I want work repurposed for this show, work that would mean something else in any other context, and only in this one would remind us of 9-11. I’m not asking you to make a piece for the show, but to find a piece for the show from your own body of work. If you find you have produced work in the last eight years that you feel was influenced by 9-11, or if you see in a work of yours the shadowy image of the towers themselves for reasons you cannot fathom at all, I hope you will consider sharing that work with us for the weekend.”
The response has been great, with, so far, 52 artists participating. They are:
Meredith Allen; Michael Ashkin; Mike Ballou; John Berens; Leslie Brack; David Brody; Ken Butler; Luisa Caldwell; Mary Carlson; Robert Chambers; Cece Cole; Caroline Cox; David Daines; Jane Dickson; Carol Diehl; Jane Fine; Barbara Friedman; Barbara Gallucci; Daniel Georges; Ken Green; Laurence Hegarty; Lisa Hein; David Henderson; Douglas Henderson; Clara Hess; Faten Kanaan; Nina Katchadourian; Jerry Kearns; David Kramer; Julia Kunin; Lenore Malen; Shelley Marlow; Douglas Paulson; Eung Ho Park; Ann Pibal; Katherine Powers; Carol Saft; Julia Schwadron; Bob Seng; David Shapiro; Judith Shea; Ward Shelley; Barry Sigel; Sonita Singwi; Tim Spelios; Greg Stone; Jude Tallichet; Anne Thulin; Hanne Tierney; Rachel Urkowitz; Scott Verhagen; Daniel Wiener; Charles Yuen