NEW YORK, NY.- Fiduciary Trust Company International, a leading global investment manager and wholly-owned subsidiary of Franklin Templeton Investments, and the
National September 11 Memorial & Museum (9/11 Memorial Museum), announced today the installation of Looking South. The large-scale painting, donated by Fiduciary Trust, recaptures the views from the South Tower of the World Trade Center which, until 9:59 a.m. on September 11, 2001, had long been occupied by Fiduciary Trust, which lost 97 colleagues and business partners.
The oil-on-canvas painting, created by Daniel Kohn in 2003, avoids direct reference to the tragic event while encouraging viewers to take solace in a tranquil visual interpretation of loss. The artist conveys an encompassing awareness of the 9/11 tragedy while provoking a reverie more peaceful than sorrowful in mood, allowing viewers to slowly remember and transform what happened that day.
Inspired by Kohns previous explorations of the vistas of the World Trade Center following his stay there as part of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Councils World Views residency and Seen From Above, his 2002 Grand Central Terminal commission by the MTA, Fiduciary Trust commissioned him to create a memorial focal point for the firms post-9/11 headquarters. This unique tribute artwork is now exhibited at the 9/11 Memorial Museum at the threshold of the Tribute Walk gallery near the South Tower footprint at bedrock, complementing Spencer Finchs installation, Trying To Remember the Color of the Sky on That September Morning.
Looking South is so deeply meaningful to our firm and employees, and for more than a decade it has served as a fitting tribute to the colleagues we lost. We are very pleased to be able to make this gift to the 9/11 Memorial Museum the right permanent home for the painting, said Larry Sternkopf, president and chief operating officer of Fiduciary Trust Company International. We are grateful for the support and vision of the Museum staff and curators who have made this transfer possible.
Daniel Kohns monumental work, Looking South, is a testament to the power of remembrance and the potential of art to provide an indelible act of testimony both to views and to lives that are no more, 9/11 Memorial Museum Director Alice M. Greenwald said. We are humbled and privileged today to formally accept this stunning work into the Museums permanent collection and to make it available for millions of people to experience in proximity to the footprint of the very place that inspired it.
So many of us have forever etched in our minds the memory of what the Twin Towers looked like in the New York City skyline, 9/11 Memorial President Joe Daniels added. The absolute breathtaking specialness of Looking South is that it captures such a unique view and one that is no longer with us the view looking out from inside the South Tower. It is a tremendous honor to be entrusted with this beautiful piece by Fiduciary Trust.
Born in 1964 in Ahmedabad, India to French and American parents, Daniel Kohn was raised in France. When he moved from Paris to New York in 1996, he was working on a series of interiors of a house in the center of France (called Changy), which sought to document the relation between art and the places of its making. Following his 1998 participation in World Views, a residency in the World Trade Center, Kohns focus shifted to abstract landscapes that seek to explore the viewers sense of pace. He has participated in numerous personal and collective exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Latin America. Additionally he has an extensive list of site-specific works, including public and private commissions and partnerships with dance, music and theater organizations. Notable among these installations are Seen From Above. Commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York City and installed in Grand Central Terminal in September 2002, and the private commission, Looking South, for Fiduciary Trust Company International, a four story painting of the view looking south from the World Trade Center.
From 2003 to 2013 he was involved with the Broad Institute for Genomic Research, where he investigated the crossovers between art and science. He is their Founding Artist in Residence and founder of the Viz Group. Kohn recently completed Instance of a Dataset, a seven floor commission for Broads headquarters.
In 2013 and 2014, Daniel was Artist in Residence at the Center for Epigenomics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY. He is now Art/Science Research Director at Ligo Project, a new organization dedicated to enabling research across Art and Science, and pursues his Artistic research in Brooklyn where he has his studio.
Kohn is currently represented by Cynthia Reeves Gallery in New York and New Hampshire.