Sculpture
YZKAR 9/11 Individual Memorial Light
- Description
- Memorial sculpture titled YZKAR 9/11 Individual Memorial Light by Tobi Kahn. The sculpture utilizes a facsimile of a piece of recovered steel which forms its base and center. Cast bronze towers are to the left and a votive holder sits to the right.
- Historical Notes
- In recognition of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, artist Tobi Kahn created a work of art consisting of two memorial lights, cast in bronze, to commemorate the lives lost at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Referenced as YZKAR, the paired works were inspired by his receipt of two remnant pieces of architectural steel recovered at Ground Zero.
Curator's Comment
The child of Holocaust survivors, Tobi Kahn thinks deeply about the shape and meaning of commemorating loss. He describes himself as obsessed with memory, believing that art can be a redemptive, healing force. Kahn’s artwork is both spiritual and secular, with commissions including everything from Holocaust memorials to a hospice meditation room.
After Kahn received remnant steel from Ground Zero, he decided to leave the fragments untouched. Instead, he harnessed their reality for a concept evoking the steel in the form of a pair of memorial lights, cast in bronze. Each was envisioned as a discrete statement, yet one inseparable from its counterpart, thus comprising a single “sacred” sculpture. The taller, upright piece—emphatically vertical—memorializes the individual lives extinguished at the World Trade Center on that deadly Tuesday morning. The companion piece, which extends outward “like an embrace,” represents the communal human loss experienced on 9/11. Taken together, the work of art constitutes the two poles of our mourning. The artworks' title is a word Kahn made up, YZKAR, which resembles Yizkor, the Hebrew name of a collection of Jewish memorial prayers. Yizkor means "may God remember."
After Kahn received remnant steel from Ground Zero, he decided to leave the fragments untouched. Instead, he harnessed their reality for a concept evoking the steel in the form of a pair of memorial lights, cast in bronze. Each was envisioned as a discrete statement, yet one inseparable from its counterpart, thus comprising a single “sacred” sculpture. The taller, upright piece—emphatically vertical—memorializes the individual lives extinguished at the World Trade Center on that deadly Tuesday morning. The companion piece, which extends outward “like an embrace,” represents the communal human loss experienced on 9/11. Taken together, the work of art constitutes the two poles of our mourning. The artworks' title is a word Kahn made up, YZKAR, which resembles Yizkor, the Hebrew name of a collection of Jewish memorial prayers. Yizkor means "may God remember."
- Accession Number: C.2021.10.1
- Dimensions: 15 in X 11 in X 8 in
- Dimensions (Metric): 38.1 cm X 27.94 cm X 20.32 cm
- Source: Brewer Foundation
- Credit Line: Gift of the Brewer Foundation
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