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“Trying to Remember†consists of 2,983 paper squares that Finch painted by hand with watercolor, each square is a different shade of blue. Each is a victim of the September 11th 2001 attacks or the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. On the day of the September 11th attack, the sky in New York City was a brilliant blue, a detail that is remembered by countless numbers Arrested people who were in the city or on the east coast that day. “The piece is really about remembering what you put into it, your collective memory of the day, the events and then your very own memory,” says Ramirez.
| “Spencer’s work is about memory and subjectivity and everyone who comes into this museum will need something different and project something different onto it. And I think the piece is made for it. ”
– Susan Cross, curator at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art |
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| “It was certainly a risk doing it. … I saw it early and became a real advocate. I think it’s extraordinary, and it’s needed, and it brings light on so many levels and in so many dimensions. ”
– Paula Grant Berry, a Chair of the Program Committee of the Memorial Foundation Board of Directors, Sept. 11 |
Shortly before the museum opened, Finch told the story The New York Times that he liked to think of the squares as drawings. When he went to work painting the paper tiles, Ramirez said, he was like a monk in his studio convent. “It was almost a religious experience for him to do this, thinking of the different colors and shades and the discipline and that every square deserves and deserves his full artistic attention: every square, like every person killed, deserves individualization and memory, â€she says.
He painted two of each tile; a complete sentence is archived in the memorial for safety. Since the tiles are made of paper, they need to be carefully cared for and dusty. Ramirez says it took a team more than 90 hours to clean them up for the museum to reopen after COVID.
TThe museum’s original plan was to regularly replace its commissioned work, but that idea faded because Finch’s work was so impressive and so right, says Ramirez. “We found that our visitors interact with it in so many different ways and it just keeps doing the work Spencer intended to do, which is active memory,” she says. Along with the Ladder Company 3 ambulance, the installation is possibly the most Instagram-influenced item in the museum.
As part of the 9/11 anniversary celebrations, the memorial is planning an Instagram event to pay tribute to the importance of Finch’s work. People are asked to photograph the sky on or around September 11th and share the photo and a thought on that day 20 years ago.
In The New York Times Story written just before the monument opened, Finch said he wasn’t sure the work would be successful but thought that if he did it in an honest manner, it could be. “As an artist, I don’t have the feeling that my motifs are always pure. But I feel like they’re pretty pure here. I’m a New Yorker and I was here that day, â€he told the reporter.
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