Art Ashes for the WTC


Photo d'une toile déclouée de son châssis en train de brûler.

The September 11 attacks and the ensuing collapse of the Twin Towers caused a great shock on everyone’s mind. My work as an artist has been deeply affected by the event, which led me to building up an installation in remembrance of the victims.
I have meant it aesthetically sober, with a high emotional input, in order to sympathise with who have been hit their flesh and in their heart.


It is a large cube, made up with 216 painted wood cubes numbered 1 to 216. The whole work consists of two distinct parts :
• A shell of 152 ash-grey empty cubes,
• A core of 64 fire-red cubic boxes holding « art ashes » obtained by burning 64 paintings from my own work production.

Photo de l'installation avec les cubes rouges visibles au coeur des cubes gris.

Sac en coton, fermé avec un lien, qui contient les cendres. Une diapositive est agrafée en haut du sac.

The sacrificial ashes of each canvas have been deposited into small unbleached cotton bags. Each one carries an attached slide of the original painting. The bags have then been sealed in the core cubes.


Photo de l'ensemble des cubes rouges ouverts, contenant les sacs de cendres.

On the lid of each red cube, I stenciled a number from 1 to 64 and stuck a label listing the specification of the work reduced to ashes.

gros plan du cube rouge 64 scellé.

Photo des 64 cubes rouge empilés, représentant un gros cube.

These boxes are sealed and therefore inviolable.
Once assembled, the grey cubes numbered 65 to 216 from a sarcophagus which encloses the red cubes. All the cubes bear one of the keywords : World / Trade / Center / Twin / Towers …


Gros plan de la fausse colombe

A dove hangs from a string over the whole set-up as a peace message.


To the public, the installation will appear, depending on the montage, as a grey cube partly disclosing fewer or more fragments of its red heart as it stands encased in grey-colored blocks suggesting destruction.

Photo de l'installation avec des cubes gris positionnés devant comme s'ils étaient tombés de l'installation.

Cette oeuvre mesure un mètre cube, et pèse cent trente kilos. This work is copyrighted. No part of it may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the artist.


For more pictures, connect to the webpages of the installation :
The artist
Ashes in bags
The cubes
The Installation