grace, 10 years since
Martinez Gallery at Art Basel, Miami, 2011/2012

This was the fifth (5th) venue for the installation titled grace, exhibited here for the Martinez Gallery during Art Basel Miami, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, after the BDG exhibition a month earlier. grace was originally commissioned by the Hudson River Museum for the exhibition tilted The Magic of Light in 2001, a survey of artists working with light.

It was originally conceived as a formal work of light (a tower of light) meant to interact with another light work (green fluorescent light) by Dan Flavin permanently installed in the Hudson River Museum’s main skylight. As a result of the attacks by the extremist al-Qaeda militants on September 11, 2001, grace became a memorial to everyone who lost their lives that day: civilians, emergency personnel, un-documented workers and the 19 militants themselves - all victims of failed global policies and aggressions. At its base of the work the paper wreath contains all the names and could be taken away by visitors one-by-one.

At this venue the installation included many PICTURED FACTS - statements and data about the impact that 9/11 had globally in the decade following 2001. The PICTURED FACTS are words and numbers on white boards were framed in black frames and hung around the tower of light in order to contrast the loss of life on September 11, 2001 and the ten years that followed.

The location of the church newly built to celebrate America’s colonial past, was a place of great symbolic irony, given that the events of 9/11 were a result of violence against the colonial nature of American military presence globally.

*Following the exhibition, grace was acquired by the City of Miami and permanently installed in the newly built police academy.