Eric Fischl`s The Tumbling Woman

The Tumbling Woman Eric Fischl Background •  Displayed at Rockefeller Center on one-­‐year anniversary of a<acks •  Quickly removed because New Yorkers’ aDtudes were so negaEve •  Randall Van Schepen argues that this was more than a moral or aestheEc response—the response shows a naEonal post 9/11 “psycho-­‐social” state of anxiety •  Early reacEon to represenEng tragedy so ominous that many arEsts withdrew allusions to the WTC from their art (i.e. ediEng out of the towers in movies such as 2001’s Serendepity) Monuments/MemorializaEon •  Counter-­‐monuments movement is an a<empt to open dialogue with viewers about the constructed nature of history rather than present an officially sancEoned interpretaEon of history •  Strives to point to 2 primary absences: that of the vicEms to whom the memorial is dedicated and that of a prescripEve arEsEc point of view that provides the viewer a specific interpretaEon The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin 4 Ways The Tumbling Woman sculpture challenged viewers 1. 
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Timing The Figure/The Body The Falling Body The Female Falling Body Timing •  What is an appropriate delay from the event to memorializaEon? •  Do we need Eme to allow for healing on the part of mourners, to respect the dead, and/or to allow the event to codify into an accepted narraEve distant enough from raw emoEons to not be too disturbing? •  Has the digital age shortened the Eme between event and memorializaEon? •  “Rush to commemorate” 9/11, perhaps because of absence of bodies and buildings? (Outpouring of posters, poems, mini-­‐shrines, etc.) The Figure/The Body •  Fischl’s sculpture at odds with the minimalist mode of commemoraEon sparked by Maya Lin and the Vietnam memorial •  Lin wanted to elicit responses beyond tradiEonal heroism •  Is the monument too apoliEcal? Controversy •  Yet, Lin’s memorial hugely controversial in its Eme •  Frederick Hart’s memorial in response to Lin’s •  In mulEcultural era, problem with representaEonal sculpture. Who gets led out? Fischl •  Fischl thought design of the 9/11 memorial placed too much emphasis on buildings, not enough on human beings •  Wanted to depict a human figure, but avoided certain problems of representaEon by using a larger than life, nude figure that avoids racial markers •  His sculpture is disturbing because it directly confronts the way individuals were tossed about and vicEmized by ideological forces beyond their control The Falling Body •  NegaEve reacEon also due to the fact that the sculpture represents the worst psychological horror of that day—the jumpers •  EsEmates of numbers range from dozens to hundreds—
not a minor, sensaEonal part of the a<acks, but very important •  Metaphorically, represents America in free fall •  Jumper images quickly replaced by heroic images of first responders Female Falling Body •  Choice of a female form at odds with prevailing modes of representaEon of 9/11 •  Fischl made sculpture muscular to avoid “woman as vicEm” cliché •  Post 9/11 visual and verbal rhetoric celebrates an implicitly male heroism. Hypermasculine images in the media during the lead-­‐up to and beginning of war •  If a skyscraper is the ulEmate phallic symbol, then America wanted to counteract a symbol of naEonal castraEon •  Sculpture challenges jingoisEc, heroic responses to 9/11