Remembering Ground Zero

August 19th – September 25th, 2021

Opening Reception: Friday, August 20, 6 pm

Virtual Artist talk: Friday September 10, 6:00PM

Five Points Gallery, 33 Main Street, Torrington, CT 06790

Remembering Ground Zero: 20th Anniversary Show is a retrospective exhibition that remembers September 11^th through paintings and art work that recall both the time before the towers’ fall—the halcyon days that documented a moment in time of clouds dancing across the sky over the city below in all its variations of form and light—and the collective shock and pain of the aftermath of the fall, when the world tilted on its axis and a new sort of chaos emerged. 

 World Views, a pilot artist residency program was launched by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) in 1997-98. Nineteen artists were selected by Graham Nickson, Dean of the New York Studio School, to make art in the north tower of the World Trade Center. Over the four years that preceded September 11, 2001, 130 artists of varied disciplines participated in the program. Each artist used their medium of choice to interpret and document the view of Manhattan with its ever changing weather, light and patterns.

I was a member of this extraordinary pilot program, where I made art in a 10,000-square-foot space on the 91^st floor. When conceptualizing the show, the first artist I contacted was a fellow studio mate, Torild Stray, at her home in Norway.  Not only did she agree to be in the show, but she became my collaborator and co-curator of art work done by participants in the World Trade Center residency program, as well as those who have made art about the fall of the Twin Towers or in response to 911 as a pivotal point in history from a broad world view.  

It has been over twenty years since the World Views artists, from their perches on the upper floors of the majestic towers, painted views from a perspective framed by windows on the world—a perspective that no longer exists. Through the lens of the windows of the World Trade Center we remember the time before and after 911.

Don Bracken, July 2021 

Artists include: Don Bracken, Susan Crile, Charlotte Ghiorse, Pamela Lawton Gwinn Loman, Torild Stray

“ Return of a View ” a short-documentary (12.44min) by Eivind Tolaas ( Norway) about a picture made in the Twin Towers 1997-98 will be showing in the gallery.

Bracken and Stray will give ongoing tours of the exhibition the first weekend of the show and by appointment the following weeks.

Please contact the Gallery Director to set up a tour, Karl Goulet kgoulet@fivepointarts.org