Friday, September 6, 2002

From Photos to Relics, Remembering the Unforgettable

 By ROBERTA SMITH

 In the days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September, some people lamented that art was frivolous or pointless in the face of such horrors. But that didn't stop anyone from turning to art for comfort — or from making it, either. 

Even before the predictions that irony would die, materialism would end and television would turn serious had faded, the "pointless" point of view regarding art drowned in a flood of diverse, aesthetically oriented visual activity. Coping was the overused word, but also a very real explanation. People needed to look at things that reflected their loss, and they often made them themselves. 

 New-York Historical Society

With "In the Light of Memory: A Spherical Panorama From the South Tower of the World Trade Center," the progression of shifting perspectives comes to a close with an exhilarating yet painful moment of illusion created by the painter Christopher Evans.

 This time, we see the world as it looked from the public concourse of the South Tower, a view that will never be seen again. It is painted with wonderful precision and restraint on a sphere that seems as light and smooth as a balloon shot through with the late-afternoon sun. (Jan Van Eyck must be Mr. Evans's favorite artist.)

 Everything is there: the rivers, the harbor, the lesser skyscrapers of Manhattan, the afternoon sun, the expanses of New Jersey, Staten Island and Long Island stretching toward the curved horizons, and, finally, the big striated plane of the North Tower. For one second, it is as if Sept. 11, 2001, never happened.