DENNIS ADAMS (b. 1947 Des Moines, Iowa. Lives New York)
AIRBORNE: Enough 2001-2002 , Images each editioned (5)
Lambda Digital C-prints, mounted archivally on aluminum, 40 ½ x 54 in.
Twenty-five years ago, Dennis Adams in conjunction with Kent Fine Art became focused on a response to the attack and collapse of the nearby World Trade Center. The resulting eleven-part installation was titled AIRBORNE, “Searching the skies over lower Manhattan following 9/11, Adams photographed newspapers and plastic bags that he observed floating over the city.” All images were taken in camera by the artist from 35mm slides, no digital re-imaging. As published by PhotoEspana (2002), an excerpt from Skywriting by Dennis Adams.
Since 1975 I have lived in the same loft in New York, about eight blocks north of the Twin Towers. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I had just stepped out of a taxi in front of the Cooper Union when I heard the sky roar. I looked up to see the first plane swooping down like a huge predator over the West Village—then the skyline swallowed it seconds before the north Tower was hit. The spectacle of the event itself—the striking planes, the burning towers and their sudden collapse—was almost instantaneously seized by the media, replayed again and again, so that even first-hand experiences were being displaced by the saturation of televised images.
What New Yorkers were left with were peripheral—yet for this all the more indelible—impressions, now suspended in memory like a dream: the falling ashes mingled with thousands of scraps of paper floating silently over downtown streets, the changing form and color of the plume of smoke that hung over lower Manhattan, the indefinable stench in the air, the startling sound of jet fighters replaying the soundtrack of the attack, the walls covered with photocopied pictures of missing loved ones, the multitude of small memorials spreading throughout nooks and crannies of the city, the eerie midday absence of cars and street life south of Canal Street, the advertisements taking on new and unintended meanings, the haunting glow of stadium lights over ground zero at night, the endless parading north and south of rescue and clean-up crews, the warm exchanges between neighbors who had never before acknowledged each other, and finally, the spatial void itself where the Towers once stood, expanding moment by moment into a monumental vacuum of loss.
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AIRBORNE: Payback 40 ½ x 54 in.
Exhibited:
Dennis Adams: Airborne Kent Gallery, New York 18 May thru 28 June, 2002
Dennis Adams: Airborne: Maintenant: Images du Temps Present curated by Vincent LaVoie Maison de la Culture Parc Frontenac: Le Mois de la Photo, Montreal 2003
Dennis Adams: Airborne Real Jardin Botanico, PhotoEspana, Madrid 2 June thru 18 July, 2004
Literature:
Johnson, Ken Dennis Adams: Airborne New York Times Reviews Section 7 June 2002
Mahoney, Robert Dennis Adams: “Airborne” Time/Out New York 6 June 2002
Lavoie, Vincent Maintenant: Images du Temps Present Montreal: La Mois de la Photo c. 2003
(front cover, pp. 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, fronticepieces)
L’Evenement Archistorm November 2003
Cliché, quand tu nous tiens Femme October 28, 2003
Guerrin, Michael A Montreal, l’art cherche a dececadrer l’image d’actualite Le Monde October 7, 2003
Lavoie, Vincent. 2 Entre temoignage et spectacle: l’homme selon la photographie d’actualite
L’Oeil October, 2003
Le Mois de la Photo a Montreal Observatoire des Musees September-October, 2003
Delgado, Jerome L’actualite autrement La Presse September 28, 2003
Lemarche, Bernard Decodes et de sens Le Devoir September 28, 2003
Crevier, Lyne Tout Vu ici September 4, 2003
Adams, Dennis Objectif reflexion L’Actualite September 1, 2003
Lemarche, Bernard Culture: Le Mois de la Photo, L’instant Extensible Le Devoir August 31, 2003
Delgado, Jerome La presse dans la mire au Mois de la photo La Presse Montreal August 27, 2003
Lemarche, Bernard De notre temps Le Devoir August 24, 2003
Passiour, Andre-Constantin Ici et Maintenant Fugues.com August 20, 2003
Delgado, Jerome Un Automne en Deux Temps La Presse Montreal May 31, 2003
Baque, Dominique Pour un Nouvel Art Politique: de l’art contemporain au documentaire
Paris: Flammarion c. 2004 Airborne illus p. 158
Fernandez, Horacio Historias Madrid: PhotoEspana04 c. 2004
(pp. 63, 64, 65, 66, three color plates, 168, 169, 170)
Guerrin, Michel “A Madrid, les photographes face a l’histoire” Le Monde: Culture 15 June 2004 p. 30
Furio, Maria Jose Historias visuales Barcelona: La Vanguardia 23 June 04 color front cover and p. 18
