Saturday, August 12, 2006

9/11 Artwork

Thinking About Art and others have been discussing the interesting issue of "art that responds to Sept. 11."

I raise my hand and say that the work of New Yorker David FeBland responded directly to 9/11 because David's work essentially is all about New York as widely discussed in his many reviews both here and abroad.

David FeBland's Studio View on Sept 11
David is a non-stop painter, and his work on 9/11 was about NYC as it is every other day.

Because his daily vocation is to paint New York, and New Yorkers and events that he observes in NYC, on 9/11 he he climbed to the roof of his studio building and painted the NYC landscape that he saw from his rooftop, and later that day, as he and thousands escaped the island via the ferry, he quickly sketched his fellow New Yorkers and later he painted the people on the ferry. And a year later he came back to the ferry and painted Afterlife.

On the days immediately after 9/11 he painted the people working in and around Ground Zero, such as the workers who were volunteering as food service workers to the construction guys clearing the area, and the construction volunteers who came from all over the country to help.

So in essence a New Yorker, painting New York, as he does every day, recorded 9/11 as any other event that he would do, about NYC on that day.