Modern Monuments - The World Trade Center

Talking about monuments that people have hated has made me think of what happened with one monument of the World Trade Center attacks, originally a sculpture called “Tumbling Woman” by artist Eric Fischl. It was accompanied by a plaque with a poem by Fischl:

[source]

We watched, 

disbelieving and helpless, 

on that savage day.

People we love

began falling,

helpless and in disbelief. 

[source]

The sculpture is of a naked woman tumbling, presumably through the air, a depiction of those who chose to jump rather than wait for the World Trade Center to collapse around them on September 11^th 2001. After about a week of being on display in the Rockefeller Center, it was suddenly covered with cloth and a curtain wall was erected around it due to a wave of complaints about the content of the statue.

“I don’t think it dignifies their deaths,” said Paul Labb… “It’s not art. … It is very disturbing when you see it.” [source]

Fischl issued a public apology soon after the statue was covered and eventually removed, saying that the sculpture was a depiction of deep sympathy for the “vulnerability of the human condition” [source].

Tumbling Woman might not have been at Ground Zero, but its effects on the state of memorials that would later be presented there are keenly felt. The first large-scale monument to be erected on the site was one to the firefighters—and it has all the hallmarks of a classical Roman relief, openly deriving its inspiration from Trajan’s Column. Assistant Chief Harold Meyers provides a description of the bronze relief on an interactive New York Times feature:

“The… relief is appropriate in the tactics used… It’s the way people are being presented. It does not show specific people. I think that it was an opportunity to as thoroughly as possible present fairly what took place, and I would say as such that it was not meant to be an artistic presentation, by that I mean an abstraction, it was meant to be modelled beautifully, but truthfully.” [source, transcription mine]

I would suggest taking a listen to that sound clip, because to fully understand the quote you need to hear the way he says abstraction, the absent way he says artistic presentation. This is not supposed to be a work of art, it is strictly speaking a memorial. Meyers not only shies away from the concept of art as a representative force, and in part in drawing such specific information from Trajan’s Column, a monument of victory, not of something as tragic and emotional as 9/11.

Trajan's Column [Source]

Firefighter's Memorial [Source]

“It was decided after the first sketches were presented that it was the appropriate thing to do to show the buildings at the point of impact and not collapse. Speaking to many of the people, it was not the impact that in fact brings back the greatest emotion, it was the collapse and what that collapse then brought about. They felt that the building should still be strong and present, identifiable but not at a point of failure or weakness.” [emphasis mine]

The whole message of the Firefighter’s Memorial is not emotional—the faces of the firefighters are passive, just like their counterparts in Roman sculpture. The moment of the second impact was deliberately chosen over the image of the collapsed towers, which is specifically cited as an image of failure or weakness. The inscription reads, “Dedicated to those who fell and those who carry on. May we never forget.” Yet there is no depiction of falling anywhere in the image. Firefighters are depicted doing their work, strong backed figures who show no hesitation. The monument avoids altogether the event that killed these people who are being represented, the towers collapsing, and this is evidently the way that the people of New York choose to remember this day—not the moment of collapse, but the point when the firefighters and police gathered to save as many people as they could. There is none of the confusion of the day present—everyone in the sculpture is directed, knows what they are doing. I don’t think this monument would be covered by a cloth and whisked away—but neither is it really doing service to the memories of those whose names are listed directly below.