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Volume 3, Issue 20
September 27 - October 10, 2001
ART
REFLECTIONS
@
OKLAHOMA CITY
NATIONAL MEMORIAL
Renna Shesso
Moon and Ghosts
This isn't the art review I sat down intending
to write. It's a lingering reaction to artwork
seen more than a month ago in a
neighboring state.
We were still driving after sunset.
Eventually lost and nearly downtown, we
aimed the car toward the setting crescent
moon as a non-rational guiding light.
Blocks later, still moon-focused, I suddenly
caught the words "Murrah Federal" on a
wall we were passing. Simultaneously my
sister said, "There are the chairs." We
parked and began a night-walk through
the Oklahoma City
National Memorial
with a handful of other
visitors.
This is the site of the
Oklahoma City bombing,
transformed. Tall
entrance gates at east
and west sides of the
memorial begin the
experience. Built of
huge flat slabs of
stone, these walls
might appear solid by
daylight, but at night they're crisscrossed by
slim lines of light where mortar would normally
be, as if the walls are actually porous,
insubstantial. Over the eastern portal the
numbers "9: 01" are cut from the stone and
lit from behind, while the western gate
reads "9: 03." The gates bracket the event,
representing before-and-after of the 9: 02
am explosion on April 19, 1995.
Central to the landscape, between the gates,
is a shallow reflecting pool occupying the
space that used to be N. W. Fifth Street. A
slight breeze ripples portions of the water as
we pass; in other parts of the pool, the water
is as smooth as black ice.
Chairs face the water, one for each life lost.
The seats and tall backs are bronze, cool-looking
and elegantly shaped; the bases are
glass cubes. At night the glass is lit from
within, creating a soft glow below each
empty seat. The 168 chairs are arranged in
nine uneven rows, designating each person's
location in the nine-story building,
with several outlying chairs representing
those killed outside. Names are etched on
the glass bases; the smaller chairs represent
the children who died.
The area around the chairs is cordoned off
so the chairs remain alone on their crisp
lawn. Esthetically, this is just right. People
walking among the chairs, mementos (the
ubiquitous fluffy toys) left on the chairs
would negate the profound emotional
impact. These chairs are empty. That may
sound stark, but actually it was serene... and
sad.
There's more, although most other details
pale after the chairs. A remaining original
wall contains the names of survivors. An
elm tree that survived the blast is now
ringed with fruit-and flower-bearing trees.
A children's area contains hand-painted
tiles along its low walls. Large slate slabs
set here as paving have boxes of chalk perpetually
at hand for visitors to write
responses.
A neighboring building,
damaged but not
destroyed, has been
incorporated into the
memorial. The southwest
end of the former
Journal Record
Building is now the
Memorial Center and
contains exhibits. The
building's southeast
portion has become the
Oklahoma City
National Memorial
Institute for the
Prevention of
Terrorism.
Monuments were changed forever by the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington,
D.C. It's easy to forget the original 1980
controversy around the Maya Lin design. If
modern America has a true ritual site, one
that people respond to spontaneously and
continually, this is surely the place.
Intentionally interactive, "The Wall" is simple,
cathartic, profoundly experiential.
Art, in some of its best moments, has the
power to heal. Beyond portraiture, beyond
factual records of places and things, beyond
the designer crap to match the new couch
and out past the trends du jour, art can heal
and renew the human spirit. As impossible
as it might seem right now, there are powerful
visual images besides those of airplanes
and towers. We'll find them eventually.
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