Director's Message: Summer 2021
It’s midsummer 2021, and I am thrilled that the Wallach has been welcoming the general public on Fridays and Saturdays since mid-June. Now that the pandemic restrictions are lifting, New York is bursting with activity. I am enthralled by the many cultural options and street energy, particularly at the museums, galleries, and parks. I am also ready for more social interaction, and especially the serendipitous bumping into friends and acquaintances, one of the city’s special charms. Yet I am feeling a little hesitant, a little shy, having adapted to the routines of spending more time at home and out in nature. I also can’t forget the death, the trauma, the illness, and the disruption to so many lives. The uncertainty has changed us, and we may not know the full extent of how or in which ways we will need to recover and move forward into the future.
My hope is that the Wallach exhibitions will reconnect us through their offerings of thought-provoking experiences, with topics including protest and 9/11. We have been welcoming back visitors with The Protest and The Recuperation, an exhibition of works by ten global artists who bring new perspectives to the value of progressive protests and dissent, as well as the need for care and healing. For those who are not able to visit us on the sixth floor of the Lenfest Center for Arts, we continue to offer virtual experiences of our exhibitions. On July 19, we’re hosting a conversation between artist Lara Baladi and scholar, editor and educator Anthony Downey.
On September 10 we open our fall exhibition, The Way We Remember: Fritz Koenig’s Sphere, 9/11, and the Politics of Memory curated by Professor Holger A. Klein. On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, this wide-ranging exhibition brings to life the story of a public artwork that becomes a memorial to the tragedy of 9/11, and examines how memorial, monuments and memory bring the past into the present. We’ve commissioned a few artists to imagine memorials and monuments to those we’ve lost to Covid-19 in the Harlem and Morningside neighborhoods.
As fall seems to encroach earlier and earlier each year, I am taking the time to savor the summer, making time for forays to the mountains and coastlines. I will soon begin to count the weeks before we rev up again for a very active fall. I have certainly missed the energy of a full-on semester and all the attendant activities that accompany campus life at Columbia. I invite you to visit us and trust you will find something at the Wallach to engage and inspire you.
Betti-Sue Hertz
Director and Chief Curator