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Tsereteli is the Russian artist who has conceived, designed, constructed—and, it turns out, paid for—the extraordinary monument To The Struggle Against World Terrorism that is currently under construction on the waterfront in Bayonne Harbor, N.J. At the ceremonial ground breaking last September, no less a figure than Vladimir Putin was on hand and called the sculpture “a gift from the people of Russia.”

Since then, Tsereteli and his considerable team have been hard at work: The various components of the monument have been constructed in three different factories in Russia, the parts have been shipped here in sections by sea, and it is currently being reconstructed in what will be a landscaped park in the heart of a new residential and commercial district in this city just across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

Tsereteli, an enormously experienced and prolific artist, is a true celebrity in Russia, and his work, particularly his public sculptures, are sited prominently all over the world. But more remarkable than where they are is the seemingly endless and effortless range of styles that he can muster if the mood suits him. He can do everything from a bronze Donatello relief to a Picasso junk construction and pretty much anything else in between.

But what he’s come up with for his 9/11 monument is so unfamiliar to anyone accustomed to normal expectations of public sculpture that it is actually a little difficult to take in. Standing 100-feet high, a rectangular bronze tower appears violently cracked down its middle, and hanging in the gap is a 40-foot long, elongated, stainless steel teardrop.

The whole work stands atop an 11-sided black marble plinth, into which are carved the names of everyone who died on 9/11, plus those who died in the World Trade Center bombing of 1993. It will be clearly visible from Battery Park, from the Statue of Liberty, from the Staten Island Ferry—and from planes approaching Newark Airport. At night it will be brightly lit.

As remarkable as the audacity of Tsereteli’s vision is the straightforwardness with which he has brought this creation off. While everyone is still arguing with everyone else down at the World Trade Center site, Zurab Tsereteli has spent $12 million of his own money, and teams of Russian and American workmen are preparing the final surface finish of his monument—and already installing a test version of its final lighting system.

And regardless of the public mood on the fifth anniversary of the collapse of the Twin Towers, you can assume that there will be quite a turn out for the unveiling. Putin may not show again, but Russia is sending his second-in-command. And Tsereteli counts Bill Clinton as a good friend, and he knows everyone from Kofi Annan to Robert de Niro.

I can’t wait for the public reaction to this most unusual, highly prominent memorial.