Rose Salane at MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts -ARTnews

Rose Salane, Range 1 (detail), 2019, selections from the former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey library inventory, engraved library shelving unit.

COURTESY THE ARTIST AND CARLOS/ISHIKAWA, LONDON/©CHARLES MAYER PHOTOGRAPHY

Pictures at an Exhibition presents images of one notable show every weekday.

Today’s show: “List Projects: Rose Salane” is on view at MIT List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, through Sunday, May 26. The exhibition, the New York–based artist’s first institutional solo show, presents work that views the World Trade Center in New York, a building destroyed during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, “as a hub of social activity, a community of workers, and a prism through which to view broader culture,” according to exhibition materials.

For the exhibition page:

“List Projects: Rose Salane” features a series of framed works and a large-scale sculpture that engage the lost collection of the Port Authority Library of New York & New Jersey. Once located on the 55th floor of the former World Trade Center, the transit library was shuttered as a result of budget cuts in 1995. In April of 2001, a record of its inventory was copied onto six floppy disks and sent to six different libraries in New York and New Jersey in the hopes of preserving the collection. In preparation for their distribution, the library’s holdings were stored in sub-basement level 4 of Tower 1 and were destroyed in the September 11 attacks.