“Ground Zero 360,” an internationally acclaimed exhibition conveying the chaos, courage and emotion of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on New Yok City’s World Trade Center, is one of three new exhibitions opening at St. Bonaventure University’s Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts in September.

 

The other new exhibitions include “Hand and Spirit,” a collection of contemporary Southwestern artwork bequeathed to the Quick Center by the late David Van Buren, a St. Bonaventure graduate, and a companion exhibition of Southwest art titled “Art and Hand,” which is curated by Gary Keem, a 1969 St. Bonaventure graduate.

 

All three exhibitions open to the public in Quick Center galleries on Monday, Sept. 11.

 

“Ground Zero 360” honors the victims of 9/11 and the valor of New York City police officers, firefighters and rescue workers who rushed to the World Trade Center in the aftermath of the terrorist attack. The exhibition features artwork created by artists from around the world to commemorate the day.

 

The exhibition is the brainchild of Nicola McClean, a photojournalist who was working in New York City on 9/11, and her husband, Paul McCormack, a retired inspector with the New York Police Department. McCormack, a native of Donegal, Ireland, was among the many police officers who responded to the World Trade Center, while McClean, a native of Dublin, Ireland, took thousands of photographs of the devastation in and around Ground Zero.

 

“Our exhibition includes more than 40 original pieces of artwork created by professional artists from all over the world,” notes Evelyn Penman, interim executive director and senior curator at the Quick Center. “It is this stunning artwork that defines this exhibition and takes it well beyond the factual events of 9/11 at Ground Zero.”

 

Exhibition visitors will be able to touch fragments of a twisted steel I-beam and broken granite from the World Trade Center. Also featured are small steel crosses that ironworkers created onsite at Ground Zero, as well as an American flag that flew over the site. Personal effects of two victims of 9/11, police officer Moira Smith and firefighter Kevin O’Rourke, which were graciously donated by their loved ones, will also be on display. 

 

Ground Zero 360 is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving the memory of all victims of Sept. 11, 2001.

 

The exhibition opens Sept. 11 in the Quick Center’s Paul W. Beltz Gallery on the second floor and runs through Oct. 29.

 

The “Hand and Spirit” exhibition brings to life the culture of the American Southwest. It features a collection of modern kachinas, 27 paintings and drawings, as well as more than 60 pieces of pottery created by artists whose families have been creating traditional pottery for hundreds of years.

 

The collection was bequeathed to the Quick Center by the late David Van Buren, a 1969 St. Bonaventure graduate and longtime criminal justice professor at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. Van Buren fell in love with the American Southwest while serving as a visiting scholar at Northern Arizona University, researching peacemaking and the tribal courts of the Navajo Nation.

 

“The Van Buren collection adds a new dimension to the University Art Collection,” Penman said. “It will eventually be integrated into our contemporary galleries so that it can be acknowledged as the exceptional art that it is.”

 

The exhibition opens Sept. 11 in the Winifred Shortell Kenney Gallery on the Quick Center’s second floor and continues through the fall semester.

 

“Art and Hand,” a companion to the Van Buren collection exhibition, features contemporary Southwest pottery as well as paintings by Raymond L. Knaub, Don Brackett and the late Buffalo-based painter and sculptor Joseph Orffeo. The exhibition is curated by Gary Keem, a 1969 St. Bonaventure graduate.

 

The exhibition opens Sept. 11 in the first-floor Front Gallery and runs through Dec. 15.

 

The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at St. Bonaventure University is presently observing summer hours, which are noon to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Beginning Monday, Aug. 28, the hours will be noon to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Weekend hours, noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, begin Sept. 16.

 

Visit the Quick Center website at bw17.iin3d.com/quickcenter.

 

 

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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship. St. Bonaventure was named the #5 regional university value in the North in U.S. News and World Report’s 2022 college rankings edition.