9/11 Memorial Museum

The 9/11 Memorial Museum is almost entirely underground, like a descent into hell.  Here's the view from the ground floor.

The artifacts on the way down are mostly unremarkable except for their mammoth size. This slurry wall prevented water from the Hudson River rushing into the World Trade Center foundation before the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Rusty steel girders have been artfully arranged.

A display of "missing" fliers, posted by family members and friends in Lower Manhattan after 9/11,  conveys the desperate hope they struggled to keep long after the collapse of the buildings.

My favorite part of the museum is the most abstract element.  The designers have tried to capture the extraordinary brightness of the blue sky, so at odds with the devastation that began at 8:46 a.m., by commissioning hundreds of colored panels, each a shade different from all the others.

"No day shall erase you from the memory of time" - Virgil

An escalator runs along the side of the "survivor's staircase."

A mangled fire truck is parked on lower level.

Twisted metal at one end of a long hall looks almost sculptural.

A gallery displays commemorative items including a motorcycle a fireman had been restoring before he was killed.  The survivors of his ladder company completed the restoration in tribute.

An artist engraved the names of nearly 3,000 people killed by the terrorists killed on a simple urn.  The same names appear outside the memorial around the perimeter of the north and south reflecting pools.

The faces of most of the victims stare out at you from an enormous quilt.

Larger versions of many of these images line the walls of the family room where photos aren't permitted.  A darkened room within that room provides heartbreaking biographical information about each of the victims.

Debris recovered from the site pre-dates the World Trade Center, in some cases by centuries.

The museum's designers then thrust you into the chaos that New Yorkers experienced that day.  The next gallery is noisy, crowded and overwhelming.

There's an incinerated fire truck.

Imagine rushing down a crowded staircase in footwear like this.

Some bikes never got ridden back home.

A Looney Tunes sign-off offers some sardonic commentary on the museum visit.

Zoltan, the son of my college roommate Tom, was 11 on September 11, 2001.  Today he's a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

Fun!

There's still time to see the Jeff Koons retrospective at the Whitney before the uptown Whitney closes its doors for good in October.  Even though his and Louise Bourgeois' outdoor sculptures are the only art I can recall from the Guggenheim Bilbao, I was unfamiliar with his oeuvre and more than a little skeptical.  Not any more.  I had almost as much fun as I did at Guardians of the Galaxy, which is saying a lot.  Koons is as obsessed with surface, sex and pop culture as much as I am--what's not to like?

That said, the first full floor of the exhibition bewildered me a bit.  As an occasional maid, I fully appreciate housecleaning appliances.  But stacked upon fluorescent lights in vitrines?

And sure the floating basketballs are cool, but juxtaposed with the Nike posters and the sculpted, aquatic lifesaving equipment--huh?  Perhaps Koons is reflecting on how a lucrative career in professional athletics can be misperceived as rescuing African Americans from the ghetto.  Anybody who tried to use the heavy sculpture would drown very quickly, while the basketballs remain an eerily suspended temptation.

Something similar is going on in the next room, where alcohol ads hang on the walls above shiny, shiny sculptures, many of which depict the tools used to deliver, mix and dispense America's most lethal drug.

Koons starts to get more playful in another room, occupied by smaller household appliances, inflatable flowers and bunnies, sponges and mirrors.

But the real fun begins one flight up with his most notorious work and bright color splashed on the walls.

I think this woman deliberately wore a wig to pose here.  I wish I had thought of it.

In another gallery, colorful mirrors cut in cartoon shapes reflect both visitors and guards.

Before going to the show, I knew that Koons had married an Italian porn star and that some of his work depicted their sex life.  Like they say, if you've got it, flaunt it.

I hadn't realized Koons was quite so handsome.  Undoubtedly a big career asset, no matter how idealized.

Cute poodle, too.

Who could resist the room of ceramic sculptures, especially the hot mermaid embracing what looks to be a terribly chagrinned Pink Panther?  

Michael Jackson, his chimp Bubbles and Buster Keaton are depicted, too.  Is that the Virgin Mary cradling a pig?  Animals are big in Koons world.

The reflections in the engraved wall hanging change constantly.

You'll find a bewigged king, Bob Hope and a bucktoothed girl among the smaller steel sculptures in the next room.

This photo makes it hard to see exactly what's going on here.  Let's just say this buxom girl hit the junkie jackpot--a physician more than willing to use his hypodermic needle!

Up another flight, you're struck by the scale and texture of Koons' work which manages to transform the banality of its subjects.

More inflatable toys in another gallery.

Should we be shocked by breast baring in such close proximity?

Speaking of breasts, King Kong beats his right next door.

"Antiquity" is the theme of the final room.  Okaaaaaaaay.

The shiny sculptures afforded quite a few discreet selfie opportunities for this old coot.

Don't miss the work on the lower level of the museum.  The album cover for Lady Gaga's Artpop is there along with some other barnyard miscellany.

Shiver me timbers--they kicked me out before I could get to see Popeye close up in the sculpture garden!

No matter, I left smiling.