Powerful Flatiron exhibit pays tribute to war journalists (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
The Sprint Prow Art Space
Flatiron Building
175 Fifth Ave. at Broadway & Fifth Ave.
Daily through April 15, free
www.cherylmcginnisgallery.com
www.cindykane.com
Although hats were often featured in the nineteenth-century shop windows of Fifth Avenue’s fashionable Ladies Mile, a different kind of headgear is on display there now. In 2008, visual artist Cindy Kane began creating collages on fifty used Vietnam War-era military helmets she purchased online. She contacted journalists who had covered international conflicts, asking them to contribute items from their reporting. Kane, who is based in Martha’s Vineyard, then took the objects — handwritten notes, photographs, press badges, foreign currency, e-mail exchanges, airline tickets, Band-Aids, expense bills, and other memorabilia — and layered them, decoupage-style, onto the helmets, each one dedicated to an individual journalist. The Helmet Project, which was first seen in a different iteration in New York City in 2009, has been transformed into “Eyes on the Ground — Journals of War,” a powerful exhibition extended through April 15 at the Sprint Prow Art Space in the Flatiron Building. The triangular street-level glass-walled gallery, pointing north on the corner of Twenty-Third St. and Broadway, contains the fifty helmets hanging from the ceiling at varying levels, paying tribute to the men and women who risk their lives to reveal the truth behind what is happening in battles around the world, from Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan to El Salvador, Bosnia, and Democratic Republic of Congo, from the Balkans, Israel, and Russia to the Sudan, Libya, and New York City in September 2001. Curated by Cheryl McGinnis, the installation is a poignant reminder of the importance of a free press and the dangers these award-winning journalists face every day. Among the participants, many of whom have won Pulitzers in addition to other prestigious prizes, are Geraldine Brooks, Chris Hedges, Jeri Laber, Ward Just, Martha Raddatz, Steve Mumford, Deborah Amos, Scott Simon, Lynsey Addario, Nelson Bryant (who parachuted into Normandy on D-Day), and Anthony Shadid, the Washington Post Middle East correspondent who died from an asthma attack in 2012 while trying to leave Syria.
Award-winning journalist Chris Hedges is among fifty reporters contributing to Cindy Kane’s “Eyes on the Ground” exhibit (photo by Richard Kranzler / courtesy of Cheryl McGinnis Gallery)
Hanging in the Prow Art Space, the helmets are unidentified, essentially representing all war journalists, but details about each reporter are included in the online site, including a short biography and what paraphernalia they contributed. Cairo-based McClatchy journalist Hannah Allam wrote to Kane, “Each item has a story,” while CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier explained, “It was harder than I thought to face gathering these.” Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author Brooks sums it all up with this statement: “The unexpected juxtaposition of an anonymous military helmet and deeply personal memorabilia provides a profound comment on the universality and the particularity of war. Each helmet, with its unique ephemera and calligraphy, offers an abbreviated portrait of an individual reporter; together, encircling the viewer, the Helmet Project becomes a monument to the hardships, the losses, and the absolute necessity of war reporting.”