News, Exhibition Museum
“An example of the immeasurable value of artistic freedom.”
“Torild Stray’s charcoal drawing of the view from the Twin Towers will next month become part of the permanent collection of the 9/11 Memorial Museum at Ground Zero, New York.”
“Just weeks after the 9/11 tragedy, I was standing in a gallery in Oslo so crowded it was difficult to move. Speechless, I contemplated an enormous, apocalyptic charcoal drawing of the view from the lost Twin Towers. The atmosphere in the room was surreal — the perspective New York had just lost was suddenly here.
New York Metamorphosis was created during Torild Stray’s Artist-in-Residence stay at the World Trade Center in the late 1990s. The studio was located on the 91st floor, but the view depicted in the work is from the 85th floor.Only a short time after the terrorist attack, encountering the work felt disturbingly immediate and gripping. The weight of the motif made the room seem to spin. Those present were reverent and deeply moved. The space was so packed with the curious that it was hard to breathe. Or is that simply how I remember it now? The monumentality of the work was overwhelming. Set against the fragility of the enormous sheet of paper, it evoked associations with the vulnerability of the seemingly mighty and immovable towers—the vulnerability of our reality. It was a reminder that even the largest structures have weak points in their construction that can lead to total collapse. The rough expression and somber tonality of the old charcoal technique felt like a prophetic hint of the barbarism that had now made its return to the well-ordered cultural sphere of the West…..
Excerpts from article, by Ellen Lande, Oslo. NY TID Newspaper https://www.nytid.no/eksempel-pa-frie-kunstens-uvurderlige/
