Montclair artist’s sculptures at World Trade Center are first since 9/11 – NorthJersey.com
A massive sculpture called “XO World,” installed last fall in front of lower Manhattan’s Freedom Tower, marked a turning point for the World Trade Center site. The huge blue globe (the ‘O’), next to two giant crossed arms (the ‘X’), is the first piece of public art on the site since the attack on the Twin Towers 20 years ago.
The 12-by-24-foot artwork, along with a companion piece inside the Oculus depicting four multi-racial children playing a game of jacks, titled XO Play, has inspired countless Instagram selfies of tourists crossing their arms across their chests in front of the sculptures, sign language for ‘love.’ (#xoworldproject)
The giant artwork also marked a turning point for Montclair artist Daniel Anderson, who, until XO World, was known among private collectors for his standard-size oil paintings with a sculptural, or 3-D component. He had never done sculpture, public artwork, or anything large-scale.
Anderson, 42, who grew up on Packanack Lake in Wayne and moved to Montclair in 2016, got the idea for XO World in September 2020, while the pandemic raged. “There was COVID, and so much racial and political tension across the country and globe,” he said. “I wanted people to experience a message of positivity and peace, and rally behind it.”
He set the lofty goal of having the sculptures installed a year later — near the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and on the 40th anniversary of World Peace Day — and began “cold-calling.”
He started with the Durst Organization, the real estate firm that developed the World Trade Center site after the Twin Towers fell. Their response? “How can we help you get this here as soon a possible?” he said. He also wrote a letter to Kevin O’Toole, chairman of Board of Commissioners for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and former State Senator for the 40th district, who helped get the ball rolling.
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But that was just the beginning of a process that Anderson said tested even him, an artist accustomed to rejection.
Because the land is co-owned by the Port Authority and New York State, he said, “You have to go through a lot of bureaucratic levels. There’s so much paperwork, permits and insurance. It was exhausting; so many long phone calls and presentations and tears.”
Ultimately, though, the sweat and tears paid off. The sculptures were installed on World Peace Day, Sept. 21, 2021, an impossibly short timeline from Durst’s approval eight months earlier.
How long they will remain at the World Trade Center is “still being worked out,” Anderson said. Both are being leased to Durst and the Port Authority by the private investors who own them.
Meanwhile, Anderson is looking to create and install XO World sculptures in “signature cities around the globe,” beginning with Chicago and Miami. His girlfriend, Colleen Brennan, is working out details as head of the new XO World Project Foundation.
“I’m very grateful that this piece, with its message of equality, unity, peace and love, has been unanimously loved and embraced, and is bringing everyone together at this landmark site at the epicenter of the globe,” he said.
“The chances it would be completed were so slim, but I felt a higher purpose guiding me on sleepless nights.
“I swam up the Nile and never got bitten by alligators.”
Julia Martin is the 2021 recipient of the New Jersey Society for Professional Journalists’ David Carr award for her coverage of Montclair for NorthJersey.com.
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Email: jmartin@gannettnj.com
Twitter: @TheWriteJulia