I do think the WTC and Pentagon were chosen for military strategic reasons. It's hard for the Western mind to view it this way, because for us it's taboo to purposely target innocent civilians when we wage war. I suppose I should include the Eastern mind in this category, too. At least the Japanese had the "decency" to attack a military target, when they bombed Pearl Harbor.
It's the Middle Eastern/Islamic Jihadist mindset that stands out as the anomaly. When Westerners deliberately commit atrocities against civilians during war, as does sadly happen sometimes, these acts are considered war crimes, dishonorable, and disgraceful to the folks back home. When Islamic fanatics do the same, the Middle East celebrates and candy gets passed out to children. Their religion dictates their politics, their warfare, everything down to which hand they wipe their own @$$es with: American civilian = infidel = legitimate military target.
So, yes, the WTC was chosen as a strategic military target. It was not chosen as an art project. The goal was not to have Americans standing around holding champagne glasses, Ooing and Ahing, and critiquing the artistic abilities of Mr. Atta and his gang of thugs. The goal was to kill as many Americans as possible, to terrify the rest of America into submission, and to rally Muslims around the globe to take up arms against the "infidel" West.
The terrorists committed a notorious act that would be undeniable, unable to be swept under the carpet as a mechanical malfunction (like TWA flight 800), a brazen act that would shake America to her core and put the eyes of the world upon the terrorists and their cause.
Not the images, although some of these have artistic value. But it is the photographer's art not the art of monsters who reduced the subjects to such a state.
I can agree with you on this. The photographer's choice of framing, focus, whatever, for the purpose of immortalizing these atrocities in the most powerful way possible so the world could never forget or ignore these events, could be called art. The atrocities themselves are not art.
The Holocaust as art has to do with the act itself. As a an expression of evil. I don't agree with this completely but it is worth considering.
I'm trying to understand the thinking behind this. Is it because: since art is a form of expression, and acts are a form of expression, that then it can be concluded that acts = art? I don't agree. "Art" is a subcategory that falls under "Acts". All art is an act, but all acts are not art.
I am confused. It was just something I read to the effect that the Holocaust was so completely evil, and so perfectly evil-ly executed that it might be evil art. A half-baked notion perhaps, but something to think about. I don't know enough about art theory to debate "what is art."