"I was so distraught, I needed some way to find an artistic response,'' he said.
More blithering "art-speak" - today's modern artists ( I use the term loosely), are encouraged, trained, cajoled and sometimes downright demanded to "express" whatever thought or feelings that float through their transom, and because it's "art", it doesn't matter if it offends people - if anything, they'll say it's offensiveness makes it "better" "art" (and nets the artist press, the Holy Grail of the Moderne Artiste).
These dolts are so arrogant, that they think that they HAVE to express these feelings in ways that others HAVE to be involved, art to them is a narcissitic process: instead of trying to explore his feelings about 9-11 in a more mature, heartfelt manner that's also more PRIVATE, he makes a spectacle of it all, so above all else, no matter what the message is, or why he's doing it...
It's ALL ABOUT HIM.
People like this will never create high art - a true artist would seek to create a work that would transcend his own personal feelings and encompass the event, the people involved, the people who witnessed it, AND his own feelings.
The sculpture of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima is a perfect example.
This guy is a hack.