To mark the ten-year anniversary of September 11th, the
Cleveland Police Museum is honoring those who were so vital to the
recovery and rebuilding of New York City from the devastating
terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center. Aggie Kenny's
watercolors and sketches are a rare, inside view of workers at the
World Trade Center Recovery Operation, capturing everything from
the mundane to the heroic. This will be the first time these views
have been displayed outside of New York City. Kenny brought her
sketchbook and years of acclaimed talent as a courtroom artist to
the site in the spring of 2002. She used no photographic reference;
her scenes are seized from life, and from her own unique
first-person perspective. The juxtaposition of exhausted
dust-covered responder asleep just feet away from the smoldering
pit compelled her to begin recording the tragic landscape laid out
in front of her. "Sketching scenes of the aftermath was my attempt
to comprehend the incomprehensible," remembers Kenny. Her 25
sketches and watercolors capture both the intense "focused energy"
and the "absolute unutterable exhaustion" of the fire, police, EMT
and recovery responders. In addition to Kenny's art, the exhibit
includes a small collection of tools used at the recovery site plus
a short documentary film featuring an interview with the artist.
Aggie Kenny is an Emmy-award winning reportorial artist who has
covered many court cases since the early 1970s. Artist as Witness
will be on view through NOVEMBER 23, 2011, Monday through Friday,
10 am to 4 pm. Admission is Free.
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