How a piece of 9/11 truth art made it into ‘official’ Ground Zero museum

Anthony Freda presents "9-11 Questions" to museum staff (Village Voice article in foreground).

Anthony Freda presents “9-11 Questions” to museum staff (Village Voice article in foreground).


By Craig McKee
Sometimes the truth can show up in the last place you’d think to look.
Questions_Voice_freda

Freda’s “9-11 Questions.”


A work of art that challenges the official account of 9/11 has been accepted into the permanent collection of the 9/11 Museum in New York City. And surprisingly, the piece was created by an artist who is best known for his illustrations in the mainstream media.
Anthony Freda — who has contributed provocative political art to publications like The New York Times, Time, Rolling Stone, Esquire, The New Yorker, and Playboy — says he has no idea why the museum would accept his painting, titled “9-11 Questions.”
“I still can’t figure out what is in the museum’s mind letting me in there, because literally every part of my being is fighting against the official narrative that they are trying to promote,” he said in an interview. “The thing that fascinates me, and they admitted this, is that this is the only piece in the entire collection that questions the official narrative in any way.”
Freda met with museum staff for 90 minutes to donate the art and to answer questions about the images it contains. The entire exchange was filmed for a documentary called Behind Truth Art, which is planned for release in 2015. (This 30-minute preview shows highlights of the meeting.)
Museum officials told Freda that “9-11 Questions” will rotate with other works on display and that it may also be included in traveling 9/11 art shows organized by the museum. But he concedes that museum officials, now that they own it, can do whatever they want with the piece — including locking it in a vault forever.
Freda created the work eight years ago, when The Village Voice commissioned him to illustrate its article “Fakes on a Plane,” which was intended to “gently make fun” of online 9/11 documentaries like Loose Change and the people who believe them.
The assignment led Freda to research the subject of 9/11, and he reached an unexpected conclusion — that those who were challenging the official story are actually intelligent, serious about their research, and willing to make personal sacrifices to stand up for the truth.
Freda looks out over 9/11 museum in New York City.

Freda looks out over 9/11 museum.


“Oh my God, these guys aren’t crazy like I thought,” he recalls saying to himself. “Why would they put their careers on the line to get this information out when they have everything to lose and nothing to gain?”
Thus began Freda’s personal journey of discovery. The more he explored, the more convinced he became that the evidence put forward by the 9/11 Truth Movement is scientific, factual, and undeniable.
“I didn’t go into this willingly or easily, but when you’re presented with all the evidence, you can only stick your head in the sand so long. The more I look into it, the more the evidence becomes reinforced. It just gets stronger and stronger, and you can’t tear it apart.”
Freda says he also came to understand how much of a price the world has paid as a result of the 9/11 deception: wars, millions dead, a police state, and a pervasive feeling of fear, hysteria, and paranoia.
“The script is literally out of 1984. It’s life imitating art.”
Freda admits to biting the hand that feeds him.
“A lot of the publications I’ve worked for are the same people who promoted the lies that took us to Iraq and reinforced the official narrative [of 9/11]. I have a foot in both worlds. When I get some assignments from mainstream media, I try to use those assignments to get some truth messages in there. They have the right to say what they want to say, and we have a right to say they are lying.”
Freda adds that one reason for optimism is that the Internet has changed the way people get their information, and this has made it easier to get alternative news and commentary.
“The alternative is becoming the mainstream. That’s the big story. We’re making them [the mainstream media] irrelevant.”
The documentary
Behind Truth Art director John Massaria will be using the work of Freda as the focal point of his film, which he hopes will be upbeat, not heavy or preachy.
“Through this, we’re trying to say to people, ‘What do you think about using art to wake up people?’ Art transcends words and language, and it kind of takes all those barriers down.”
Freda agrees: “The movie’s not just about me, it’s about activists and artists and people who are trying to come up with creative ways to get these messages out there.”
Interviewees for the film include William Binney, Gerald Celente, Richard Grove, Adam Kokesh, Peter Kuper, Lee Camp, and a number of other thinkers and activists.
Massaria says that once Freda’s 9/11 piece was accepted, the museum gave him permission to bring in a film crew to document the artist donating his work. But after the film had been shot, museum officials had a change of heart.
“What’s curious is they really didn’t want us releasing that footage at all; they tried to backpedal.”
He says the museum sent a letter saying that he was only able to show the part up until Freda unveils the artwork.
“That was only like two seconds – he unwraps it and that’s it?” says Massaria.
At that point, Massaria turned for legal advice to Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth founder and CEO Richard Gage, who referred him to a team of lawyers. They confirmed that a film documenting the museum staff accepting Freda’s donation would not be cause for a lawsuit. If it came to that, though, it would “look pretty bad for the public relations department [of the museum],” Massaria observes.
As it turned out, the director couldn’t have scripted things any better: Filming Freda being questioned about his work of art for an hour and a half ended up being much more interesting and revealing than if the staff had said a simple “thank you” for the gift.
Massaria says he was told that the museum has also had several 9/11 Truth films donated by their directors, but that these films will remain in the museum’s internal archives. He says he hopes the public will demand that Freda’s “9-11 Questions” be exhibited.
“It just brings up another side of the story. And if you can’t have both sides shown, then the museum’s a fraud.”
A major obstacle to the film being finished is funding. A Kickstarter campaign brought in $3,500, but more money is needed to complete it. Anyone interested in contributing to the effort can email the filmmaker [here].

37 comments

    2. “Comments are welcome.”~Fetzer
      Yes indeed, thank you for the opportunity. I made a comment myself on that YouTube just moments ago.
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  2. In this intriguing and newsy report Craig seems to have shown a lot of initiative in preparing it and he’s early off the mark, judging by a quick Google search. The search, for me at least, didn’t turn up anything about this development in Freda’s career/life. Judging by Freda’s website (http://www.anthonyfreda.com/) he’s a wonderfully subversive artist. I especially like his “Freedom is a Shining Artifact of the Past,” “You Are Here,” “The Magic Bullet” and “The Dinosaur Media is Dead” (even if the word media is plural, with the singular word being medium, and therefore his title should read “The Dinosaur Media Are Dead.” Few artists are strict grammarians).
    Freda’s work reminds me somewhat of that of Mark Lombardi who based it on painstaking research into political-financial scandals. His giant pieces (some five by 13 feet) “Oliver North, Lake Resources of Panama, and the Iran-Contra Operation, 1984-86” and ”Pat Robertson, Beurt Servaas and the UPI Takeover Battle, 1985-91” reveal graphically the interconnections between big money, the military, the political elite and criminal organizations such as the Mafia. The Wikipedia entry on Lombardi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Lombardi) states he committed suicide at the age of 49. That entry neglects to mention that at the time his star was rising, nor that he had just been shown at the Museum of Modern Art nor that he had to work feverishly night and day prior to the showing to restore his work because the sprinkler system in his studio mysteriously was activated, severely damaging most of his pieces.
    By the sounds of it, the 9/11 Museum will be locking up Freda’s 9/11 piece. I’m surprised he sold it to them outright. One hopes he will apply his creative imagination to more art relating to 9/11 – and perhaps to the 9/11 Museum. I look forward to the documentary and intend to contribute a necessarily modest sum to the crowd sourcing.

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    1. Actually, Barrie, he didn’t sell the piece, he donated it. And I love his stuff, too. He’s also a great person to talk to: article and personable as well as being well versed in the issues. I recommend you watch the 30-minute video of Freda talking to the museum staff about the artwork (the link is in the article). It’s quite interesting.
      This article first appeared this week on the AE9/11Truth web site, which is maybe why you’re seeing the positive Google listings. This version has some small changes from the original.

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    2. Yea Barrie!
      Mark Lombardi’s work was utterly amazing. You know the FBI had a gallery opened in the middle of the night to study one of Lombardi’s larger pieces with the connections between Bush and that whole circle of underworld/covert links. they apparently took photo’s as well as notes.
      Lombardi’s work was unique in that from a distance they were appealing to the eye, and only by getting up close to them would you see what these shapes were really made of. All hand drawn in pencil! Brilliantly executed without a single flaw.
      I to am convinced he was murdered by state run ninjas.
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  3. In my opinion the 9/11 fraud museum will do everything in its power to disappear this artwork and make the conversation about it die. I suspect they won’t show it much if at all and I suspect they will be unreachable for comment if questions about the art are put to them.
    We will see.

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      1. They probably think the art makes truthers look like they are crazy which is why they want it I think. Now they are probably rethinking that decision.

        Reply

  4. I like what Freda says here: ” When I get some assignments from mainstream media, I try to use those assignments to get some truth messages in there.”
    This is what I think goes on at a number of levels within many human institutions with regard to 9/11. They have to do what they can within their confines, so they don’t risk losing their careers, reputations, or in some cases lives or peace of mind. I think there are a lot of good eggs in institutions which are corrupt at the top. And I think good eggs within the said organizations give clear hints that they support us. Back in 2008, a man who worked for the FBI, named Michael Heimbach, who was the asst. director of the Counterterrorism division, responded to a letter from Harold Saive of the Florida truth group “Gators for 9/11 Truth.” In this response, Heimbach said: “Mr. Gage presents an interesting theory, backed by thorough research and analysis.” I am going to go out on a limb and guess that Heimbach was going “lone ranger” when he gave this response, meaning he didn’t receive any sort of clearance from his superior before issuing this response to Saive.
    http://www.ae911truth.org/home/210-fbi-acknowledges-thorough-research-and-analysis-of-ae911truth.html
    And of course the ultimate moment was when Szamboti and McIlvaine appeared in a favorable segment on Geraldo’s Fox News show. Geraldo’s silence thereafter is strong evidence he was threatened financially if not in worse ways, but he got that little pocket of truth out there as best he could within his confines, and it was a darned admirable job.
    The good eggs try and do what they can within the gags of their constraints.
    I’m guessing that the art will quietly be put on display. If indeed it does get featured in the “rotation,” here’s what I predict will happen, and if it does, we can say I called it right here at Truth and Shadows. A 9/11 family member or three, likely widows or mothers, will loudly protest the art, and the MSM will pick up on it and make a scandal out of it for 72 hours. During these 72 hours, the issue will be front and center not just with Bill O’Reilly and the right wingers at Fox Noise; over at CNN, Anderson Pooper and Sheep Blitzer will also make much ado about it; the women will be given front and center air time in front of millions, in which they will declare that having this art on display is like having their loved one killed a 2nd time… People will start tweeting boycotts of the museum, and so on… and then the museum will take it out of rotation and “sincerely apologize” for the “oversight” at letting such an “offensive” piece of art “slip through the cracks.”
    Thanks once again for a refreshing and well written article Craig. It will be interesting to see what happens with this. Looking forward to seeing the video.

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    1. And we will hear that it is an “insult” to the those who died on 9/11 if we try to figure out who actually killed them, and family members would be incredibly offended if the deaths of their loved ones are NOT used to justify endless war and the creation of an Orwellian USA.

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    2. A conspiracy to display the art just so that the 9/11 censors can vilify it and it “has to” be removed? Maybe. I’ll offer the alternative conspiracy theory that the temple’s priests–I mean the museum’s curators–may design some exhibit that will contain the art and bury it under ostensibly objective explanations that will teach the visitors that all 9/11 Truth is contained in it and that 9/11 Truth is insane beyond what words can describe.
      But irrespective of what the priests–I mean curators–do, this is another interesting episode of 9/11.
      Love,

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  6. II have loved this piece of art since the first time I saw it. Great composition and great conceptual perception.
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  7. Freda’s artwork is beautiful in it’s simplicity, and is jam-packed with most relevant challenges to the official narrative. It deserves to be turned in to a bronze sculpture and placed in front of the Trinity Church across the street from the museum.
    That said, for the uninitiated majority who would be unsympathetic both to the questions raised in the artwork and to art in general, the bullet-point, somewhat disjointed questions would very likely be perceived as the “ravings of a conspiracy theorist” which are not cohesive, and are outright offensive “to the memory of the victims and their families”, as Adam Seyd points out above.
    So, as confusing as the museum’s acquiring of Freda’s artwork may be, it also begs the question whether or not they have acquired any other items (art or otherwise) which challenge the official story that this museum glamorizes, propagates, etches in stone (figuratively and literally) and memorializes for future generations and official history books.

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  8. To Craig: Sorry I missed the clear reference in your piece on Freda and his art that he made a donation, not a sale. To AdamS: It seems you may have built a pretty good time machine there. One can hope it breaks down, however, and the future unfolds in a different and better way. Meantime, I’m breathing in and out in the usual way and not betting against your machine.

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  9. Does anyone know the medium that Freda’s original artwork was produced in?
    It appears to me that it may have been a pencil drawing scanned into Photoshop for coloring.
    If this is a fact, then the original pencil is the piece that is of great worth. The colored works would all simply be jpgs of the digital work.
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  12. I’m not very good at explaining things and that is why I just post others writings.
    http://www.altheadlines.com/top-10-illuminati-symbols-hidden-in-plain-sight-13249963/
    Symbols and propaganda only work when an individual does not consciously recognize them. In other words, the symbols have the most power when the true messages are hidden, thus working on an individual’s subconscious level by triggering an emotional response to the message or the symbol. However, once we recognize the true meaning of a symbol or message, we then can filter them out and their intended effects on us are rendered obsolete.

    Reply

  19. “My New Years resolution is to stop blogging.”~Kittii
    I sincerely hope you are better at keeping your resolutions than I am.
    \\][//

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  20. Pingback: Comment une oeuvre d’art remettant en cause le 11-Septembre finit sa course au Musée de Ground Zéro | Cayo Hueso
  21. Pingback: 9/11 museum artist/illustrator Anthony Freda, Globalization Studies Prof. Tony Hall _ on Kevin Barrett’s Truth Jihad Radio | NO LIES RADIO
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