“I have to brainstorm while grieving,” says Ana Juan, whose cover, “Reflections,” commemorates the tenth anniversary of 9/11. “Since I’m an emotional person, I discover things about myself I never imagined before.”
In its quiet beauty, Juan’s image evokes both the reflecting pools at soon-to-be-opened Ground Zero Memorial and the black-on-black cover that The New Yorker published in the aftermath of 9/11.
See below for Art Editor Françoise Mouly’s comments on that and other 9/11-related New Yorker covers.
“Ten years ago, my husband, the cartoonist Art Spiegelman, our daughter, and I stood four blocks away from the second tower as we watched it collapse in excruciatingly slow motion. Later, back in my office, I felt that images were suddenly powerless to help us understand what had happened. The only appropriate solution seemed to be to publish no cover image at all—an all-black cover. Then Art suggested adding the outlines of the two towers, black on black. So from no cover came a perfect image, which conveyed something about the unbearable loss of life, the sudden absence in our skyline, the abrupt tear in the fabric of reality.”
“For the first anniversary, Ana represented the void in the skyline with an image saturated with light and color, a glimmer of hope.”
“Gurbuz captured a view that was surreal but also strangely familiar to all New Yorkers: the mirage of the twin towers reflected in all of the city’s skyscrapers. In the first few years, we kept being surprised by what was not there.”
“Istvan Banyai’s cover showed the memory of the towers intruding into the most casual moments of our lives—maybe with more urgency for those of us living or working in skyscrapers.”
“What would have been another 9/11 anniversary cover was preëmpted first by a natural disaster—Hurricane Katrina—and then the man-made disaster of the Bush Administration’s response.”
“Philippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers always had something of the miraculous. Five years after 9/11, it seemed like a fitting way to represent the strength of the human spirit, even when faced with tragedies.”
“As years passed and the rebuilding at Ground Zero got underway, the memory of September 11th lingered but it no longer felt as anchored to a specific date or place. So our mid-September covers returned to celebrating the pleasures and private moments that life in the Big City can offer—until this year.”
