THE SERIOUS PLAYFULNESS OF HILARY HARKNESS
The artist has a new show that deconstructs the Civil War, Gertrude Stein, queer desire and Ernest Hemingway
“When details of my private life are splashed in the press, I throw a shit fit, then happily cook dinner for my wife,” says Brooklyn-based artist Hilary Harkness.
Her professional life, however, is happily on full display: Harkness’ two-part show, “Prisoners from the Front,” and “At Home, At War: Life with Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas,” opened October 13 at the P-P-O-W Gallery in Manhattan, where it will be on display through November 11.
The show marks Harkness’ first solo exhibition in over a decade, and it is the largest showcase of her work to date. With it she unleashes her vivid imagination and sharp observations like never before.
In the first part of the exhibition, Harkness has drawn inspiration — and its name — from Winslow Homer’s 1866 Civil War masterpiece, “Prisoners from the Front.” But Harkness takes a sharp turn away from the original.
Unlike Homer’s iconic painting, in which a real Union officer captures several Confederate soldiers, Harkness’ “Prisoners from the Front” is a fictional narrative made up of 18 small-scale (21”x16”) works on canvas, each mixing fantasy with reality to explore power struggles inherent in sex, race and class.
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