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Abstract
The central feature of Reflecting Absence, the national September 11th memorial designed by Michal Arad, is two inverted fountains that recess in the footprints of the fallen Twin Towers. Abstract and simplistic, the memorial clearly recalls the precedent setting design of Maya Lins Vietnam Veterans Memorial and yet, there is a closer source that is disregarded by current scholarship, that of Michael Heizers North, East, South, West, 1967/2002, itself four inverted and severe geometrical shapes. Michael Heizer is an earthworks artist most famous for his large-scale sculptures in the deserts of Nevada and his oeuvre is marked by themes of absence, permanence, orientation and monumentality. This thesis purposes to take seriously both the formal and conceptual connections between Heizers work and Reflecting Absence to elucidate how the memorial functions as a site of national reorientation in the aftermath of the disorienting, even apocalyptic events of September 11th, 2001.