Wolfgang Staehle’s 2001

Wolfgang Staehle’s 2001. Two channel video installation from time-lapse video recorded on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, New York City. Collection of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.

Countless New Yorkers witnessed the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center as they were unfolding. Every conceivable form of image-capturing device recorded that awful spectacle, earning it distinction as the most visually recorded event of all time.

Inadvertently, the approach of hijacked Flight 11 and its explosion through the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. were also chronicled by a pair of unmanned webcams in Brooklyn. Several days earlier, they had been situated in the south-facing window of an apartment building in Williamsburg as part of a project conceived by Wolfgang Staehle, a pioneering internet artist. Focused on lower Manhattan, the camera shutters were calibrated precisely to trip at four-second intervals, continuously snapping panoramic views programmed for live-streaming to the Postmasters Gallery in Manhattan. Staehle had arranged two similar, remote camera setups to transmit real-time scenes from Berlin and the Swabian countryside in Germany. Titled “2001”, this coordinated installation —scheduled to run from September 6 to October 3 — was intended to convey the predictable normalcy of life at the start of the 21st century. Manhattan’s downtown skyline represented the contributing influence of global capitalism.

In a sequence of twelve-seconds yielding three images, those mundane rhythms were ruptured as Staehle’s cameras chronicled the transformation of a routine workday into a city under siege. This rare footage, which records the launch of the terrorist attacks on America, would shift the perception of Staehle’s artwork from an aesthetic commentary to forensic evidence. For the next three weeks, his Brooklyn-based cameras continued to document lower Manhattan’s recast skyline with mournful impassivity, Wolfgang Staehle’s 2001.

MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST: Wolfgang Staehle was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1950. He attended the Freie Kunstschule in Stuttgart, and in 1976 he moved to New York to attend the School of Visual Arts. After a successful career in various New York and European galleries in the 1980s, Staehle decided to work collectively. In 1991 he founded The Thing, an innovative online forum for artists and cultural workers that predates the World Wide Web. In 1996, Staehle began to produce an ongoing series of live online video streams. The first of these works was Empire 24/7, a continuous recording of the top one-third of the Empire State Building that is broadcast live over the Internet. Staehle has followed with online streams of other buildings, landscapes and cityscapes such as Berlin’s Fernsehturm, the Comburg Monastery in Germany, and the lower Manhattan skyline before and after 9/11.

EDSEL GÓMEZ is today one of the premier Latin Jazz pianists in the world. Born in Puerto Rico in 1962, he began piano studies at age five. He grew up in a musical environment that allowed him to master afro-Caribbean rhythms in depth, working since childhood with an incredible array of Latin music idols such as Marvin Santiago, Celia Cruz, Carlos “Patato” Valdes, Santitos Colon, Cheo Feliciano, Roberto Roena, Willie Colon, Ismael Rivera Jr., Luis “Perico” Ortiz, Olga Guillot, Lola Flores, Marco Antonio Muñiz, among many others. He gained a Bachelor of Music Degree at Berklee College of Music with a Count Basie Award for outstanding musicianship in 1985 while expanding his performance credits working with such renown Jazz artists as Gary Burton, Claudio Roditi, Bill Pierce, Don Byron, Chick Corea and Jerry Gonzalez, and many more! 

Relocated to Brazil from 1986 to 1996 he studied extensively Brazilian Music and worked accompanying such renown artists as Cauby Peixoto, Wilson Simonal, Paulinho da Viola, Amelinha, Caetano Veloso, Joao Bosco, Lucinha Lins, Angela Maria and Trombonist Raul de Souza, recording de Souza’s “The other side of the moon” (BMG, Brazil). Within the Brazilian landscape he worked as a Pianist, Arranger, Composer, Conductor/Musical Director of Broadway-like shows, educator, producer and managed his own recording studio/production company. Within a short time, most Brazilian musicians considered him “one of ours.” Gomez’s personal approach to fusing jazz, Latin and Brazilian music gives him a unique personality and musical voice.

Since relocating to New York in 1997, he has been featured in saxophonist David Sanchez’s Grammy nominated albums, Obsesión, Melaza, Travesía (Sony/Columbia), and a fourth, the Grammy-winning Coral (with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra); Clarinetist Don Byron’s Tuskeegee Experiments (Elektra/Nonesuch,1994), Music for Six Musicians and You Are Number Six (Blue Note); and Richard Bona’s Scenes from My Life and Reverence (Sony/Columbia). Edsel has released an album dedicated to the music of Chico Buarque (Mixhouse, Brazil) and the critically acclaimed and Grammy-nominated Cubist Music, produced by Don Byron.

Edsel tours around the world as vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater’s pianist/arranger, and other projects include Jack DeJohnette’s “Latin Project” featuring Giovanni Hidalgo, Don Byron, Luisito Quintero and Jerome Harris; the also Grammy-nominated Conrad Herwig’s Latin Side of Miles featuring Paquito D’Rivera, Dave Valentin, Brian Lynch, Richie Flores, Mario Rivera, Robbie Ammeen and John Benitez; and a collaboration with vocalist Janis Siegel.

IVÁN RENTA, born in Ponce and raised in Coamo, Puerto Rico, has become one of the premiere saxophonists in the jazz, Latin jazz, and Latin music industries. His ability to adapt to any musical situation has landed him on stage at many of the world’s most prestigious venues and music festivals. His credentials include performances and recordings with artist such as Tito Puente, Wynton Marsalis, Eddie Palmieri, Willie Colón, Ron Carter, Marc Anthony, Jennifer López, Jimmy Heath, Ray Barreto, The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, and Bebo Valdez, to name a few. Iván has also performed with international stadium musical acts, such as Al Jarreau and Hall & Oates. Iván has collaborated on three Grammy winning recordings.

He began playing alto saxophone at the age of 13. His band director, Luis “Wito” Santiago, recognized his talent right away promoting him to lead alto saxophone in the school band. Soon after, Iván joined La Escuela Libre de Música Antonio Paoli in Caguas, Puerto Rico, and began studying with Professor Willie Corps. Wanting to learn jazz Improvisation, he began private lessons with Jose “Cheguito” Encarnación, who introduced him to jazz harmony and improvisation. When he first heard Miles Davis with John Coltrane’s 58 Sessions, at Cheguito’s house, he knew that playing saxophone was what he wanted to do.

Soon after that, he moved to New York City to attend the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music Program. While at there, Iván studied with jazz legends Reggie Workman, Gary Dial, George Garzone, and Buster Williams, among others. In 2000, he got a call to participate on Tito Puente’s & Eddie Palmieri’s recording, Masterpiece, which won multiple Grammy awards and turned out to be Puente’s last album.

He became a member of Eddie Palmieri’s Latin jazz ensemble and salsa band, and also accepted an invitation made to him by pianist, composer, and arranger Arturo O’Farrill to join the Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra. After working with Mr. Palmieri for six years, he became the saxophonist for salsa legend Willie Colón’s Orchestra. He has also collaborated extensively with trombonist Luis Bonilla and percussionist Chembo Corniel. He recorded his first project as a leader with pianist Edsel Gómez, bassist Rubén Rodríguez, drummer Ernesto Simpson, and percussionist Richie Flores, with special guests Giovanni Hidalgo, Luis Bonilla, and Nelson “Gazú” Jaime.

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