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Art after 9/11: Critical Moments in Lean Times

This article presents fieldwork that I conducted on the response of several New York artists to the events of 9/11 and the representation of these events in the mainstream media. Through interviews, analysis of works of art, and the development of a theoretical framework derived from both Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, I argue that the work of these artists constituted a critical response to historical events. I explain how Adorno’s argument concerning the critical dimension of aesthetic experience is useful for understanding this response. In addition, I invoke Adorno’s dialectical understanding of art’s ‘dual-character’ in order to explain how critical art is possible within an art world dominated by market concerns. I also explore Walter Benjamin’s contentions concerning the democratizing capacities of new media and the withering of the aura as an important corrective to Adorno’s narrow focus on modernist formal development.