Eric Fischi, Tumbling Woman, 2001-02.Fischl was born in New York City and grew up on suburban Long Island; his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1967. His own web site describes him as growing up "against a backdrop of alcoholism and a country club culture obsessed with image over content."
His art education began at Phoenix College, then a year at Arizona State University, then California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, where he earned his BFA in 1972. He then moved to Chicago, taking a job as a guard at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
In response to 9/11, Fischl debuted his work Tumbling Woman at Rockefeller Center in New York, creating controversy since it reminded the viewers of people falling from the World Trade Center. When asked about the controversy in an interview, Fischl still felt "confused and hurt by [it]. It was an absolutely sincere attempt to put feelings into form and to share them, and it was met with such anger and anxiety in a way that used to be reserved for abstract sculpture, really." Fischl felt people were mourning the building more than the people since there were so few bodies but such a high body count, which he felt was wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Fischl
