It is a rather well-known picture, which became a touchstone for many people when trying to deal with the absolute horror of the day. For those unaware of the picture's difficult history, there is an excellent article from Esquire Magazine.
This is one of those pictures that I find myself unable to look away from. There is an undeniable grace to the almost peaceful position of the man in the picture. Juxtaposing that grace and beauty with the unbearable pain of what must have been his "moment before" makes me ache. When this picture was originally taken it was used in several prominent newspapers, including the New York Times. However, the picture receive much criticism and backlash, and was only used the one time, because readers found it to be disturbing and in poor taste. The general feeling was that we as a society were intruding on a very personal final decision and action, and that no one had any right to use a picture of that moment for publicity. But it seems to me that if we follow Shakespeare's advice and "hold a mirror up to nature," we have no choice but to accept this picture's place in the artistic world. The way the man lines up with the straight lines of the building behind him, the way he seems to be in motion even as he is suspended in the center of the picture, the emotional response the picture brings out in us, the viewers...are not these what the avant-garde artists were seeking? To provoke and disturb though the devices of art?
A second piece of art that came out of the drama of 9-11 is a play by Neil Labute entitled, The Mercy Seat.
Written in 2002, it was one of the first plays to deal directly with the national tragedy. It centers around a man and woman who had been having a workplace affair for some time. They work in the World Trade Center but had left the office early for a tryst at her nearby apartment. And now, because of the events of the day, one can assume that the man's family believes him to be dead. So they are faced with the idea that they can call his family and reassure them that he's fine, but risk revealing why, or they can use the tragedy as an opportunity to run away and truly start over.
It's an uncomfortable play that forces you as the audience to consider that even in the face of unspeakable horror and tragedy, there are some that would seek to make it all about them. Like good art should, and like the avant-garde artists would urge us to, the play considers questions that most people would not. It is unafraid to look a tragedy in the face and ask, "But what can this do for me?" Cold and unfeeling? Sure. Realistic and worth the time it takes to consider? Absolutely.
The Tragic Manifesto of the Real
We, the purveyors of the tragically real, do hereby put forth that Shakespeare's mirror of nature allows no room for equivocation. Those who would choose to look away; from horror, from tragedy, from reality, from life...have no more place in this world than they do in our theater. We must not shrink from what others would deem uncomfortable, unsuitable, inappropriate. Rather, we must be decidedly headstrong in putting forth art and theatre that reflects the very things about ourselves and our society that are in fact unsuitable, inappropriate, and ugly. For it is these things that makes us real and true. Ask the unmentionable question. Seek the unfavorable answer. Destroy the conventions of the polite and the nice and the normal. Through these things we will find ourselves. For until we have found ourselves, we can never be free. Can never be real. Can never be us.
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