Herbert Muschamp, my favorite writer on architecture and public spaces, writes in the September 11, 2003 NY Times about receiving this collage from Ellsworth Kelly:
"On October 19, 2001," it began, "I wrote a letter to you (that I never sent) in response to an article in The New York Times which discussed the controversy of what was to be planned for the `Ground Zero' space, asking artists and others for their opinions." Mr. Kelly noted that two other artists, Joel Shapiro and John Baldessari, had urged that no building be erected at the site and that the architect Tadao Ando had made a similar proposition."At that time, my idea for the World Trade Center site was a large green mound of grass," he continued.
More recently he saw an aerial photograph of the site on the cover of the Aug. 31 Arts & Leisure section of The Times. "I was excited to see the site from this vantage point," he wrote. "I was inspired to make a collage of my idea for the space of which I am sending you."
"I feel strongly," he continued, "that what is needed is a 'visual experience,' not additional buildings, a museum, a list of names or proposals for a freedom monument." These, he said, are "distractions from a spiritual vision for the site: a vision for the future."
Now Muschamp writes:
Some think that minimal art is our country's most important contribution to culture. I'm not sure that this is true, or that it's even an American invention. Mies van der Rohe had developed it in architecture before setting foot on our soil. Yet it is true that minimalism has held a particular appeal to Americans. It enables us to withdraw from the midst of complexity without denying the manifold reality of contemporary life.
Absolutely, a large greenspace would have been the most poignant and elegant solution. As if! (Land values must be utilized! Investments recouped!)
Muschamp is getting all mushy about minimalism here but let's not forget he's a prime exponent of delirious maximalism, as embodied in Rem Koolhaas and the execrable Frank Gehry. The Kelly tribute is more than a little disingenuous considering Muschamp's role in promoting "more is more."