No one can escape from either art or war nowadays. We are surrounded by images of both. As they become intricate to our lives we can hardly avoid reflecting upon their meaning indeed.

The epitome of wart (war & art) was shown on TV and seen by more than 6 billion people, on September 11, early in the 21st century. It consists of two national airliners smashing into the two tallest buildings in New York City. The buildings, 110 stories and 400 meters high occupying one acre of land each, were standing in a complex called the World Trade Center, located at the tip of Manhattan island, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, let alone the West End of Vancouver. The buildings collapsed following the melting of the steel structure due to the burning of kerosene, a slow burning fuel which was in large quantity within the planes tanks en route to California from Boston. This is in no way an acceptance by myself of any act of war or terrorism as a means of making art -quite the contrary- but if we want to push the limits and ask ourselves where we are heading for with this war/terrorism mentality either from the right, the Police, the States through any covert operation to destroy democratically elected government or the left, or any other political group or any other extremists, let's just get blunt with this mindset. We are reaching summits of art and war forms, as a reflection of our self-destruct capability.

I will just start by mentioning that among other things I did on that infamous day and the following, was to try to physically interpret for myself that day's event in an artform that would diffuse my resentment of it all.

I chose to work on the frontpage of the New York Times of September 12 which like all other newspapers on the planet any day was featuring the prior day's events. I thought I would be disappointed by the main title of the Times and so I was, for it read "U.S. ATTACKED". I then decided it would be my art therapy for that day : changing the main title. The first that came to mind was the one by this New Yorker, a woman, who wrote somewhere : "The Humbling of us has begun" It had this "US" that could be read in two meanings. And then I changed the newspaper name for legal and symbolic reasons. I decide to produce a few more possible titles that the New York Time would not have chosen. Find enclosed four of those modified frontpage. My next project concerning this is to produce postcards that I will hide in postcard stands among the usual stuff one might expect in a postcard stand.

http://iquebec.ifrance.com/monk/okram/empire.html

How can we consider such a "terrorist act" art ? For most people, this could be considered an insult to the human intellect. Yet when we carefully analyze this "happening", it has all the ingredients of an act of wart.

Among other justifications here are a few : As for a good war there is in art as wart "collateral damage", a euphemism made popular by the American military in the late 20th century. To achieve a goal, ethics are redefined in order to achieve the deeds. These collateral damages vary from low to high as in other domains. The most important impact art creates must be one of symbolism, reflection, thinking.

Another component of this wart is that it created an impact on people without them being directly involved in the creation other than by observing.

Observers they were during that day and voyeurs most certainly. In dismay, in awe they assisted nearby or tens of thousands of kilometers away to this work in progress, wondering what it all meant for them as well as for mankind ! In that sense, it is a masterpiece.

In business terms as well as in production terms, it is among the most efficient collective act ever committed. The lowest budget possible brought down the most powerful national economy to its knees.

Art as we know it nowadays is an act of dissent as was this event. And unlike other controversial artworks, this one could not be stopped from being displayed, either from the authorities or the courts. An injunction would have been the most futile act that day to forbid this from happening or being shown.

Not only was it impossible to stop it from being displayed, everyone contributed to its knowledge : the media, the internet, etc. In short, it was the talk of the town, let alone the world.

The media were an armada of righteous politics carefully streamlining comments on the meaning of it all, whereas one could find comments - even by locals (NYC citizens) such as this by a man entering in his apartment and cynically asking his roommate : "What happens when a nation of narcissists get bombed ?" or this more reflective one by another New Yorker, a woman this time : "The humbling of us has begun". Throughout the internet forums, chats, etc. one could read such comments. Thus this wart triggered countless reactions from people and one could only reflect upon its meaning among all the authoritative propaganda that was monopolizing the mainstream media all over. Except the further you were from the physical event, the further were its impact on people and the further you were from the mainstream media closer you were from different types of questioning.

For most people in the world, emotions did not play the same role, nor were they of the same kind for the people immediately affected by it. May I take a moment to remind here that Septembre 11 was also the date the democratically elected government Allende in Chile was overthrown under American supervision, 28 years before. The general feeling in Europe and elsewhere far from the epicenter of it all, was one of resignation, like the one of a parent who is faced with the child that just burnt itself on the stove, even though warnings were repeatedly issued not to put the fingers on the heated area.

Whereas a child that has just suffered this mishap would have understood and not put its fingers back on the stove, the authorities where the wart happened decided to destroy the stove with the head of state calling for revenge within a mass in a cathedral, of all places one would expected to be immune from such language.

In terms of art, it has all the ingredients of the new form of art called "interventionnist art". It is a concept whereas you can create art wherever it is the least expected. Diane Borsato is sewing flowers in brand new dresses in hidden parts of the clothing making a gesture of art in an unexpected place to be found by its owner or Devora Newmark and her hidden bookmarks, she inserted in books in order to created questioning from the person finding this and not knowing what to make of it.

Here we have this hidden form of art at first that reveals itself step by step, reaches a colossal peak and seems to never stop having an impact long after it is officially over.

We could go on and on about this and we will in this millennium, for this event represents a kind of threshold between the sacred and the profane.

I could have mentioned Picasso's Guernica, painting created by Pablo Picasso in 1936, commissioned by the government of Spain for the Spanish Pavillon at Expo universelle de Paris. Franco and his ministers certainly did not expect this when they commissioned Picasso. But Picasso couldn’t help himself by symbolically taking a revenge from the bombardment of the Basque city of Guernica by the Condor Alliance which was using Guernica as a terrain for its experiment of airplane bombing. He thus created one of the most powerful artwork of the 20th century. We could also write about the shift in subject and representation in afghan rugs during the Soviet invasion of the 80’s whereas children were knitting carpets representing war machines instead of the usual century old designs of thoses carpets.

André Malraux said in the sixties that the 21Ist century would be mystical (spiritual, religious) or would not be. Well, we could say he was right. As I mentioned before I consider we are at the threshold of something. At the pace we are moving we might not survive very long as a species. Thus we have to seriously look at art as a constant message totally involved in contemporary life and depicting it symbolically. It is no a necessity to kill people to make a statement. But no government can decide they can do it and forbidding anyone else from doing it. If it is the path chosen by States, then there is no reason why violence and killings should not become part of the mainstream even in art. And then, one has no way of knowing where it will end.

Bibliography :

Les Commensaux : When art Becomes Circumstance

Montréal, Centre des Arts Actuels Skol, 2001

ISBN 2-9220090-9-2

KURYLUK, Ewa

"The Afghan War Rugs"

Arts Magazine, vol. 63, no. 6, February 1989, pp 73-74