New York Cultural Center
HUMAN AFFAIRS
Dialogues on events
that shape our world
MEMORY AND IDENTITY
Exploring our heritage
Testing our tradition
BEAUTY WILL SAVE
THE WORLD
Discovering the world
of arts: performances
and presentations
MEETINGS AT
THE CROSSROADS
Face to face with...
"Looking at the photographs in his book, you are
continually pushed from minute manifestations of
this tragedy to its monumental scope."
THE MIAMI HERALD
|
A place where roads meet. A time of change.
"When I see the
heavens, the work of
Your hands,
the moon and the
stars which You
arranged,
what is man that You
should keep him in
mind,
mortal man that You
care for him?
Yet You have made
him little less that a
god,
with glory and
honour You crowned
him,
gave him power over
the works of Your
hand,
put all things under
his feet"
Bible, Psalm 8
AFTERMATH by Joel Mayerowitz
The only existing photographic
record of Ground Zero after the
attacks on the World Trade Center on
September 11th, 2001.
"Looking through “Aftermath,” one sees these men
and women — sometimes working alone, sometimes
in clusters — bearing the nation’s collective grief as
they gradually restore order to chaos."
THE NEW YORK TIMES
|
"Five years ago, the professional photographer
created a valuable historical document like no
other."
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
|
If there is a theme that
has inspired all of our
cultural work, it has
been that we want to
learn again to "see."
To us, the greatest
weakness of
contemporary culture is
the tendency of human
reason to impose itself
as a "measure" on
every aspect of reality.
On the contrary, we
maintain that originally
reason is the capacity
to look at the world, to
be surprised by what
one sees, to be
challenged by the
mysterious "beyond"
that is evoked by every
serious observation of
reality. For us, this
derives from the
teaching of the late
Msgr. Luigi Giussani,
who regarded
education precisely as
"learning to see more"
and insisted that the
first step in any
genuine religious
journey has to be
"more observation, less
reasoning."
In this light you
understand why we
regard photography as
one of the key forms of
human exploration in
our age. Because
photography is always,
to a large extent, the
art of "looking." Great
photography looks at
real objects while
striving to see
"through" them, to
grasp at larger and
hidden subjects.
Ultimately, great
photography reveals
reality for what it is: a
sign. In doing this it has
the power to break
through the curtain of
ideology and to
awaken deeper
questions. All of this is
particularly true in the
work of Joel Meyerowitz.
