Virtual museum recreates lost World Trade Center sculpture, making Louise Nevelson’s iconic work available worldwide

By Sydney Seymour, Ashland.news

A digital gray sheet slowly lowered to unveil a black wooden wall sculpture inside a virtual gallery to a crowd of two dozen online visitors from New York to Ashland. A team of Ashland digital artists is behind the project: a fully immersive art museum that restored a beloved piece of art destroyed in the 9/11 attacks. 

Art Authority Museum (AAM), the virtual museum created by longtime Ashland technologists Alan and Priscilla Oppenheimer, rededicated Louise Nevelson’s 1978 sculpture, Sky Gate, New York, at 9 a.m. Friday, Dec. 12, via Zoom. 

On the same day and time 47 years ago, Louise Nevelson dedicated her sculpture at the World Trade Center. Former secretary for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the company that operated the Twin Towers, Karen Tobia attended that 1978 dedication. 

“To know that Nevelson was going to be there in person was very exciting,” Tobia said as a self-proclaimed “art buff.”

“To me, Sky Gate was New York, and it was the Port Authority. It was the thing that welcomed you when you came off the plaza, and it just belonged there.” 

As part of a broader initiative to integrate art into the World Trade Center, the Port Authority commissioned the sculpture. Louise Nevelson (1899–1988), an American sculptor known for massive monochromatic assemblages of scavenged wooden objects collected across New York City, created Sky Gate by hand. Stretching 32 feet wide and 17 feet high, the work overlooked the North Tower lobby for more than 20 years —“until it was all lost along with so much else,” co-host Alan Oppenheimer said to the Zoom crowd. 

The Oppenheimers, along with a team of three digital artists in Ashland, collaborated with Nevelson’s granddaughter, Maria Nevelson, for the reconstruction. Nevelson expressed regret for not visiting the original work in person but was grateful to contribute to her grandmother’s legacy and bring her lost work to a larger audience in a “new way.” 

Event co-host Nevelson, who leads the Louise Nevelson Foundation, said, “When my grandmother was alive, she kept telling me for 10 years to see Sky Gate at the World Trade Center. She was very proud of this particular sculpture. It was a missed chance to see one of her largest wooden wall sculptures.” 

Amy Weinstein, a representative of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, cited a New York Times article where Louise Nevelson described the sculpture as the silhouette of the city’s night sky. “That silhouette of the sky is what many of us miss, the silhouette with the Twin Towers.

There was a hole in the skyline,” Weinstein continued. “There was a hole in our hearts. It’s amazing people have tried to fill in that hole.” 

Ashland team bring global art to a larger audience 

Founded as a local concept nearly nine years ago, the Art Authority Museum features tens of thousands of artworks from around the world and continues to be developed by a team primarily based in Ashland. The museum officially opened to the public in 2024, which was also when the Ashland team partnered with the Nevelson Foundation.

With scans of the existing sculptures by Columbia University interns, the lead 3D designer and former Southern Oregon University student Lucas Adelman helped develop the virtual gallery using Blender, a 3D creation software. 

The Zoom event continued with a virtual walk-through of the galley and a Q&A session. The exhibition, “Louise Nevelson: Lost and Found, Again,” features 19 Nevelson works including Sky Cathedral from the Museum of Modern Art and Black Chord from the Whitney Museum of American Art. The visit had no crowds, timed tickets or stanchions, meaning you could get as close to the artwork as possible. 

Once he revealed the rebuilt Sky Gate, Oppenheimer said, “I keep thinking I can actually touch this thing.” 

9/11 survivor Alan Reiss commented, “It is amazing you can see the texture of wood carving.” Reiss worked at the World Trade Center as a supervising engineer and would often see Sky Gate in the corner of his eye. He was downstairs down the hall from where the truck exploded during the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Now at Port Authority for his 41st year, he dedicates himself to restoring the World Trade Center site.

“You don’t really sense it until things are gone,” Reiss said. “You really miss the artwork and the other treasures at the World Trade Center.” He expressed the importance of bringing back “collective history” to show future generations what existed at the World Trade Center.

Retired Port Authority secretary Tobia also mentioned the project’s educational value. “It’s a fantastic, innovative learning tool for future generations to learn about art all over the world,” she said. “It was a very tough day for all of us who worked there because it was our home for all those years. Every time we can get a piece of it back, it means so much.” 

The virtual museum is best experienced with the Apple Vision Pro headset or can be experienced through the AAM app on macOS, iPad, and iPhone, according to Oppenheimer. It will hopefully be available for Android and Windows in the future. 

The project, Oppenheimer said during the event, “transcends” traditional brick-and-mortar museums. “The fact that we can bring back into the world something that seemed like it was lost forever transcends both time and space,” mentioning the 24/7 access, full accessibility for anyone with an eligible device and “all sorts of magic.” Adding rooms and installations, Oppenheimer pointed out, is almost at no cost compared to the traditional museum. 

More ‘magic’ coming soon 

The AAM team is set to continue work with the Louise Nevelson Foundation to create hundreds more reconstructions of the artist’s work currently inaccessible to the public. Oppenheimer also said in a follow-up phone call to Ashland.news that they might digitally restore more lost artwork from the 9/11 attacks made by various artists. The team also plans to add more “transcendant” features like the ability to walk into a painting or see virtual art on a physical wall.

Oppenheimer described the museum, along with the rebuilt Sky Gate, as a “technological tour de force” that shows how “technology can have such a positive impact on our lives.” He continued, “This is not magic, it’s technology. It may feel like magic, but it’s not.” 

For those in the Rogue Valley who want to experience the virtual museum on an Apple Vision Pro should use the AAM Contact form to set up a time for a demonstration. Oppenheimer also suggested going to a local Apple store and installing the AAM on an Apple Vision Pro to get a brief free ticket to the virtual museum. 

For more information: 

To learn more about the Louise Nevelson Foundation, visit its website. To learn more about the Art Authority Museum, check out its website. Those in the Rogue Valley can use the contact form and inquire about an Apple Vision Pro museum visit. The Art Authority Museum is also available for macOS, iPad and iPhone with the free Art Authority App. Visit this link to donate to the museum and help preserve lost art, support digital restoration, bring art to life for future generations and expand access to immersive experiences for all.

Email Ashland.news reporter Sydney Seymour at [email protected].

Dec. 16, 2025: An earlier version of this story had Amy Weinstein’s name wrong. This story has been updated to clarify that Alan Reiss was down the hall from where the truck exploded during the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Jan. 8, 2026: Corrected Lucas Adelman’s relationship to SOU.

Related stories: 

Virtual museum to rededicate lost Louise Nevelson sculpture Friday, Dec. 12 (Dec. 10, 2025)

Brick-and-mortar meets virtual reality Aug. 2 at First Friday art museum pop-up (July 27, 2024)

From Ashland to the world: A virtual museum in your hand (Feb. 29, 2024)