An Inclusive Litany

10/9/02

Commenting on her installation, Sept. 11, which features a representation of the World Trade Center towers, New Zealand artist Gail Haffern said the attacks had been "wonderful... because it was a new idea." "Being an artist," she said of her reaction to that day's events, "I thought what if this had been a performance piece and Osama bin Laden had declared himself an artist, how would the world have seen it then?" Her piece, she says, "asks the viewer to take a new position free of accusation and prejudice to view the acts of September 11 with a sense of amazement."

And after the British artist Damien Hirst, who specializes in presenting bisected and eviscerated barnyard animals, told the BBC that the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks "need congratulating" for such "visually stunning" artwork, he issued a clarification that "I value human life."