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October 12, 2001/Tishri 25, 5762, Vol. 54, No. 5
Disaster inspires reflection on art
FRED BENDHEIM
Special to Jewish News
On a clear September morning, as I was walking to work in Brooklyn, N.Y., the cerulean blue sky suddenly was clouded by airplanes, smoke, ash and the fluttering of thousands of tiny papers blowing in from lower Manhattan.
In an instant, it was a different world. These days, anyone who is not a rescue worker or soldier in New York City might feel insignificant. The chaos and destruction of Sept. 11 has had a deep impact on all New Yorkers, whether or not they lost someone.
In the days following the attack, I know I was not alone in my inability to focus on things other than the disaster. It seemed especially difficult to think about the nuances of art when life impinged so drastically.
The newspaper and television images we all saw were powerful stuff. There was no subtlety to exploding buildings and falling bodies. How could the imagination compete with this surreal reality?
Art can be a refuge from reality, but it must encompass reality before transcending it. It takes time to heal. Little by little, art creeps back into the world. Lately, I don't need to go to galleries to see art. I see it in the streets.
It takes the form of homemade shrines to the fallen: candles, flowers and signs expressing feelings of sympathy and gratitude to the rescue workers who lost their lives. I see art in the pictures of the missing people posted on fences and in the faces of those trying to come to grips with what happened.
However, the most provocative statement I see is the ubiquitous image of the American flag - the same red, white and blue rectangle reproduced over and over, as if by Andy Warhol - on buildings, windows, cars, bicycles and T-shirts.
The appearance of flags was at first a shock to the senses. In cosmopolitan New York City, an American flag was a rarity seen on public buildings or maybe on the Fourth of July. Now that I've grown used to them, they are not so jarring - just another element contributing to the visual clutter of this jarring city. If I choose to, I can view the flags as an abstraction, an asymmetrical, top-heavy rectangle of blue.
The flag has inspired artists throughout American history. From 18th-century folk artists to Jasper Johns, artists have appropriated its image for their own devices. There have been entire exhibitions devoted to the flag's use. It is an all-too easy symbol to cop for all kinds of self-expression.
Do the flags on the streets have anything to do with art? Of course they mean different things to every person, ranging from hawkish patriotism to loving expressions of unity. This is the problem with symbols. It is impossible to discern an individual's meaning with the use of a universal symbol.
The context is everything. In times of peace, patriotic displays can seem quaint or at worst, isolationist. In times of war, patriotism is to be expected. The problem with the current time is its uncertainty. Does an emotional response preclude a rational response? We are told that we are at war, and yet the enemy is shadowy and does not have a nation.
Flying the national flag doesn't quite answer the call. One New York artist has suggested that we include an image of Earth on our flag - promoting the notion that national identity is no longer appropriate in the global times we are in.
Strangely, I used to think of myself first as simply a person - a non- national - and perhaps secondarily as an American, if I thought about it at all. The attacks have forced a different identity on me and on others like me, another subtle casualty of war.
Flags are symbols of identity. Their function is to identify, separate and then unify that which they encompass. They are a double-edged sword, unifying and empowering few, but sometimes at the expense of many. There is something beautiful about them, flapping in the wind. When the flags of all of the nations are flying together, such as at the United Nations here in New York, it is a sight to behold.
But there is something terrifying about them as well. It would be naive to view violent and political acts in terms of art.
There have been misguided references made by well-meaning writers to the terrorists as "death-artists." It is true that in order to create, sometimes it is necessary to destroy. However, to equate the Sept. 11 attacks with anything creative is perverse.
Art is essentially creative. When politics collide with art, art is invariably the loser. Among the thousands of dead was an artist, Michael Richards, whose studio was in the World Trade Towers. One of the victims of this attack was art - or on what art stands for: freedom, life, and humanism.
This was also a destruction of landmark - the ultimate architectural criticism. It has reminded some observers of the Taliban's previous cultural assault on the giant Buddhist sculptures carved in stone in Afghanistan. Like in previous totalitarian regimes, an attack on ideas and on art was a precursor to greater destruction.
An old Chinese saying states that in every disaster there is an opportunity. There is an opportunity now to live every day like our lives depended on it.
Fred Bendheim is an artist who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with his family. He is a former Phoenix resident.
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