Posted: Monday, November 8, 2010 1:12 pm

The Messenger 11.08.10

The J. Houston Gordon Museum at the University of Tennessee at Martin is hosting “New York, September 11th by Magnum Photographers,” an exhibition of 39 large-format photographs from the photographic cooperative, Magnum Photos.
The exhibition — previously shown at the New York Historical Society in New York — will be on view locally today through Dec. 15.
This exhibition began a national tour in 2005 on the five-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Since then, certain images have filled the media as well as the minds of Americans. However, the ability of Magnum photographers to capture images as they happened, many from an intimate, street-level perspective, provides an entirely new series of imagery.
The majority of the photographs were taken the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. While many photographers in the exhibition focused on the actual buildings under attack and other forms of destruction that occurred, others chose to capture the raw emotions of New Yorkers, providing the exhibition with a rich visual diversity under this centralized theme.
“New York, September 11th by Magnum Photo-graphers” includes several beautiful photographs of the World Trade Center twin towers before their fall. These nostalgic images pay respect to the buildings and establish, along with all the other images, the importance of this exhibition as one that will help viewers learn about, process and remember a tragic day in U.S. history.
The exhibition is organized under the curatorial direction of Magnum Photos, New York, and the tour is administered by International Arts & Artists, of Washington, D.C. It appears in West Tennessee with the support of the J. Houston Gordon Museum Endowment.
The J. Houston Gordon Museum is open to the public 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays. The gallery is located off the Paul Meek Library lobby, through the Corbitt Special Collections reading area. Public parking is available in the student lot on the west side of Mount Pelia Road.
Magnum Photos is a photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members. Magnum photographers chronicle the world and interpret its people, events, issues and personalities. Through its four editorial offices in New York, London, Paris and Tokyo, and a network of 15 subagents, Magnum Photos provides some of the century’s great photographs to the press, publishers, advertising, television, galleries and museums around the world.
International Arts & Artists in Washington, D.C., is a non-profit arts service organization dedicated to increasing cross-cultural understanding and exposure to the arts internationally, through exhibitions, programs and services to artists, arts institutions and the public.