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Looking Out the Windows

Thornton Dial
  • TD - Looking Out the Windows - Master Image

    Click on image to enlarge

    Photo: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio
2002
Metal grating, fabric, plastic toys, stuffed animals, rope carpet, wire fencing, carpet scraps, metal, corrugated metal, metal screening, wire, nails, paint cans, Splash Zone compound, enamel, and spray paint on carpet on wood
100 x 50 x 13 inches
Collection of
High Museum of Art
Museum purchase and gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation
Description

One of Dial's most classically integrated, well-nigh perfect compositions is a strongly vertical wall relief called Looking Out the Windows. This consummate work, weaving itself perfectly through a subtle grid and marking out a chromatic tour de force, not only stands as an abstract paragon, but embodies a heartbreaking subject. This is a piece of the cycle Dial made on the subject of the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001. It represents the phenomenon of those who looked out from the buildings. Dolls stand for children, but also for everyone, everything. The whole psychological burden of this moment—frozen horror, chaos turned into an exactingly held-together frieze—coalesces in this work. It is another example of the artist’s use of red, white, and
blue as an underlying theme. For me, it stands as one of the artist’s definitive works. —Jane Livingston