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typingtess · 7 years ago

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NCIS: Los Angeles Season Eight Rewatch: "Black Market" The basics: After a Homeland Security Agent is killed, the team investigates the world of counterfeits. Written by: Jordana Lewis Jaffe, who wrote or co-wrote “Honor”, “Patriot Acts”, “Dead Body Politic”, “Paper Soldiers”, “Unwritten Rule”, “Big Brother”, “Iron Curtain Rising”, “Exposure”, “Savior Faire”, “Beacon”, “Defectors” and “Exchange Rate”.

Directed by: James Hanlon who directed “War Cries”, “The Grey Man”, “Kolcheck, A”, “Driving Miss Diaz”, “Command and Control” (number 150), “Angels and Daemons” and “Where There’s Smoke Guest stars of note: Laura Harring returns as Julia Feldman, Byron Mann (Arrow) as Zhang Kiu, Daniel Marin as Carlos Gutierrez, Catherine Carlen as Diane, Gita Reddy as Charge Nurse, Rickey Eugene Brown as Jesse Evans, Desmond Chiam as Edward Lee, Dennell Jackson as Barista and Daniel Blake as Male Nurse. Our heroes: Do a lot of shooting while Kensi remains in the hospital. What important things did we learn about: Callen: Broke a man's arm to save Sam. Sam: Knows his Chinese prisons. Kensi: Still unconscious. Deeks: Chai tea and gluten free muffin fan. Eric: Starts his campaign for Kensi. Nell: Detail-oriented. Granger: Thinking about a replacement for Kensi. Hetty: "Honey badger don't mess around." What not so important things did we learn about: Callen: Ran an Ironman Triathlon as a spur of the moment thing. Sam: Not looking for a new house. Kensi: Being read her childhood favorite book by her mother. Deeks: Not all that in love with "Martin". Eric: Makes conversation notes for when Nell returns. Nell: Sits on a first aid kit to see over the steering wheel in the Audi. Granger: Meets Kensi's mom. Hetty: Cleans her weapons wearing a white suit and remains immaculate. Who's down with OTP: Deeks buys Kensi some breakfast even if she can't eat it and goes looking for the engagement ring when he thinks it is missing. Granger meet Kensi's mom. Who's down with BrOTP: Sam has lots of fun with Callen's discomfort over running the triathlon. Deeks and Nell make a good pair during the case. Eric champions Kensi's recovery. Any Hanna family mentions: Sam tells Diane the real estate agent that he has a family.

Fashion review: Blue-green plaid button down shirt for Callen. It is brick red henley day for Sam. Hospital garb for Kensi. Cerulean blue (hello X-Files fans) long sleeve tee shirt for Deeks. Eric is in a red and blue plaid button down short sleeve shirt with a black tee. Nell starts the episode in a dark blue top with red stripes and black pants. Dark blue suit for Granger with a plaid print and a pale blue dress shirt. Hetty wears her white suit with a red blouse – looks spectacular as always. Music: "Get to Know Ya" by Nao. Any notable cut scene: No. Quote: Granger: What are you doing, Beale?" Eric: "Making an entrance." Granger: "It's impressive." Eric: "Those applications? You're replacing Kensi." Granger: "Do you have something for me or not?" Eric: "We still don't know who Zhang Kiu has working for him inside Homeland Security. But Callen and Sam think whoever it is has been helping him smuggle purses, drugs, and contraband into the country for years." Granger: "DHS has come under fire for mismanaging personnel and budgets." Eric: "It's the reason they created those fusion centers, right? To help rein in the spending." Granger: "But then the fusion centers went and blew their budgets on Tahoes and plasma TVs." Eric: "I guess hiring all those MBAs hasn't quite paid off." Granger: "You think?" Eric: "Wait. You think Zhang Kiu has someone working for him inside one of the DHS fusion centers." Granger: "That's where I'd start making friends. Weakest link in the security chain." Eric: "Yeah. Yeah, that's good. I know, it's none of my business, sir, But I know for a fact that Kensi's gonna be back. Besides, she's irreplaceable." Granger: "I wish that were true, Beale, but it's not. For any of us." Anything else: Two young men make their way to a great party at a fancy Malibu mansion. A pool, beautiful women, an ocean view – the two men are impressed. As they mix and mingle, a waitress offers them a mixed drink. One of the men – Jesse – starts choking on his drink. Carlos, Jesse's friend, calls for help.

A stiff and sore Callen walks into the bullpen. Sam thinks a drunken Callen was thrown off a mechanical bull at the Saddle Ranch steak house. No – Callen ran an ironman triathlon (and finished) with no training. Eric arrives with news of a case. Callen slowly makes his way to Ops.

Callen asks for Hetty, who has called in sick according to Nell but Granger suspects she's out mole hunting. Eric and Nell have video of the party. Jesse was Jesse Evans was an INS Agent for Homeland. Evans was the second Homeland agent to be killed in recent weeks. The friend, Carlos Gutierrez is on his way to the boat shed to be interviewed. Callen and Sam are off to the crime scene. Granger tosses Nell the keys to the Audi – get Deeks from the hospital. They are working together again though Sam would like Nell to keep the fisticuffs to a minimum.

Nell is in her field gear as she walks into the armory. She takes her weapon from one of the drawers.

At the hospital, Deeks arrives with a good attitude and breakfast -breakfast burritos and coffee. He puts the coffee cup under Kensi's nose. No reaction from Kensi but a big reaction from Deeks when he notices the ring is off Kensi's finger. An orderly gets the charge nurse while Deeks searches the bed.

The charge nurse arrives – she has the ring. Sometimes valuables go missing in the hospital and Kensi is not in any condition to notice. The charge nurse thinks the ring is beautiful but Deeks needs to hold on to it. The charge nurse is available if Deeks needs anything.

At the fancy mansion, Callen and Sam get the hard sell from a real estate agent, Diane, about the home. She's had it for sale for more than half the year. She doesn't know the owner but thinks it is probably a sheik. Callen asks about the party. Diane rented out the place to a rich guy for the event as a way to market the house.

Callen points out that it is actually illegal to rent out a single-family house in a residential neighborhood for a party. Sam thinks they can let it slide if Diane cooperates. She wants to help. Diane has an issue with voyeurism (which she blames on both menopause and her ex-husband) so she figured out how to tap into the home security system. Callen and Sam, escorted by Diane, go to look at the security footage.

A tired Deeks brings coffee to Gutierrez. Nell is leading the questioning. Gutierrez hasn't slept. Evans was alive in his arms one minute and dead the next. There was nothing Gutierrez could do to help his friend. Deeks asks how they found out about the party. Gutierrez explains he and Evans were grabbing a bite to eat the day before and a beautiful woman gave them a password to join her at a party. He thought it sounded like fun.

Callen is reviewing the footage of the party, trying to find who poisoned Evans's drink. Diane is trying to sell Sam a better house for his family. Callen finally sees a young woman messing with the drinks in profile. Sam thinks they need a better look at the woman's face.

Alone with Gutierrez, Deeks shows the mourning man a full shot of the woman who poisoned Jesse that either Callen or Sam sent to his phone. Gutierrez recognizes her as the woman who invited them to the party. In the boat shed's main room, Granger tells Nell he recognizes the woman in the photo. "Another former love interest, sir?" Nell asks. Ignoring Nell, Granger says the woman is Ming Wah, a hit woman for the Triad.

Granger is waiting for Callen and Sam as they pull up outside the office's main door. Callen is still incredibly sore. In the bullpen area, Granger does a debrief. Ming Wah is a Triad assassin who worked for Zhang Kiu, the Triad's leader. Sam knows Zhang Kiu as his person of interest flier appears with the word "deceased" in big, red letters. Granger thinks finding Wah would be valuable – she could tell them who is running the Triad now. Granger wants her found and arrested. He will lead her interrogation.

Eric is making notes of all the things he wants to tell Nell. "Spanking, whipped cream, domination" comes from NPR stories and comic books. Granger sees the list which Eric tries to explain. Granger is not interested since he has "a personal and professional obligation" to stop Eric from doing just that. Granger wants an update on Ming Wah. Eric wants some clarification on the term hit lady and/or assassiness. Granger is not amused.

Eric was able to track Wah from the restaurant where she spoke to Evans and Gutierrez to a warehouse leased to a shipping company owned by Wah and Zhang Kiu. The deal was signed two years ago before Kiu was killed. Granger is about to update the others. Eric sees his list and realizes Granger had a point.

Deeks is being terrorized by Nell behind the wheel. The two bicker over her near misses accident-wise but Nell isn't all that interested, "because, soon enough, Kensi and her perfect little driving skills will be back and the two of you can live happily ever after." Deeks looks like Nell hit him and Nell immediately apologizes. Deeks makes it clear that they're good. He wants her to stay to his left in the field and watch the head-kicks.

Deeks and Nell join Callen and Sam. Callen asks about Kensi but gets a quick "no news" from Deeks. He's there to work. The four are in their kevlar with the big guns. They don't know much about what's in the warehouse – no security cameras and no idea what the Triad could be storing. Nell knows the Triad moves guns, drugs, exotic animals and Deeks gets excited about there being a monkey inside. "Beside the one we have," Sam jokes. Deeks reminds Sam that he's a jungle cat. Callen wants Deeks and Nell to take the front. Sam tells Nell, she's got this and Nell agrees.

Deeks picks the lock to the front entrance. On Callen's count, the two teams enter the warehouse and meet in the middle. Callen opens a box with some high-end purses. Nell points out the flaws that make them counterfeits – wrong colors, wrong logos, wrong metals. She is "extremely detailed oriented." Sam explains that counterfeit good help fund child labor, human trafficking and terrorism.

Deeks wonders how the bags got into the country but as he asks, a man and a woman speaking Chinese enter the warehouse. The team scatters to four different corners of the warehouse. The man and woman notice that the purses are out of their boxes. Nell, for some reason, yells 'federal agents' and as usual, nothing good happens. The man and woman flee.

The woman is stopped by Nell and Deeks. She half-climbs a wall, takes Deeks's legs out from under him and tries to climb over them through the warehouse shelves. Deeks, a bit slow on feet from being knocked down, tells Nell to go up the nearby stairs and follow the woman. She gets away.

Sam corners the man who does not follow instructions about standing still. When the man pulls a small knife and tries to lunge at Sam, Sam dances away and is able to punch the man in the face. When the man backs away from Sam but still brandishing his weapon, Callen breaks his arm to make him drop the knife. The man is Zhang Kiu with facial hair.

Granger finds Hetty in the armory cleaning her weapon. He asks about the mole hunt and then if Hetty is cleaning the gun with plans to use it. Hetty nods. In fact, she just keeps nodding. Granger updates her on Zhang Kiu and Hetty is still nodding her head. Granger reminds Hetty that they're down an agent and he could use "your involvement." Hetty wants to know how Kiu got into the country. The Chinese did. China is dumping their most violent criminals in the U.S. with false legends about being dead and new identities.

In the interrogation room, Callen and Sam question Zhang Kiu, who has his right arm in a sling. They tell him he's never getting out of custody but Kiu says he's going back to China in a day. Sam isn't so sure. He thinks Kiu was thrown out of China. He was given a choice, go to the US be a criminal there or stay in China in their Tilanqiao Prison, which is known for torture and human rights abuses.

Sitting outside in the boat shed's main room, Deeks and Nell are watching Callen and Sam question Kiu. Deeks wants Nell to watch and learn because Callen and Sam are two of the best at questioning a prisoner behind Hetty, Granger, himself and of course Kensi because she can do good cop and bad cop all by herself. Deeks jokes about Kensi's eye and Nell is along for the fun. The two of them work really well together. After joking, both get a little sad Kensi isn't there.

Eric pops up on the main room’s screen. The two dead Homeland agents were investigating Kiu's immigration papers. Nell wants to know how Kiu knew he was being investigated by two different agents. The three come up with an idea that DHS may have been hacked.

Callen's phone pings with an idea that DHS was hacked. Callen asks about Jesse Evans and then insults Kiu "bad fake purses." Kiu plays dumb but laughs at the idea that DHS was hacked by him or by the Chinese government. There was "no need" to hack DHS, according to Kiu. He has friends. Callen and Sam realize that Kiu has a mole at DHS.

Granger is sitting at the little computer desk in Hetty's office wall unit (which really isn't used nearly enough). Eric is passing by several times before Granger finally asks him want he wants. Eric sees that Granger is looking at the backgrounds of several NCIS agents who could possible replace Kensi. He's upset. Granger wants an update, which Eric provides. The two realize that DHS has some new offices filled with new MBA grads. Kiu could have a person in one of the new offices working for him. Granger wants Eric to find the weakest link in the security chain.

As Eric goes to leave, he turns back to Granger. Eric explains that while he knows it is none of his business, he knows for a fact that Kensi is going to return to work. "She's irreplaceable." Granger disagrees. "I wish that was true, Beale, but it's not. For any of us." And this scene is so sad.

Granger visits Kensi in the hospital. Julia mistakes him for a doctor. Granger introduces himself and Julia tells him that Kensi has mentioned him in the past. "I bet," was Grangers' reply. Granger wants to leave but Julia asks him not to. She's just reading Kensi a book from Kensi's childhood – a book Kensi left behind when she ran away to live with her father. Even after Kensi left, Julia would read it because it made her feel close to her daughter. Julia asks if Granger has any children. He mentions a daughter he's just met. Julia thinks it is never too late to become close – she and Kensi spent years apart but are close now, though she can't stand the idea of losing Kensi again. Granger asks if she'd like a cup of coffee or some fresh air. The two leave together.

Kiu insults DHS for being stupid. They can't keep track of their money so they pour money into the problem. "Only an American can be that stupid." Sam thinks that's harsh. Kiu mentions someone going from Harvard to a small town to work for DHS. Callen thinks that's interesting and winks at the camera. Deeks and Nell are startled by the wink, which they are worried is a tick. They also know Harvard is the key.

Eric found two LA based DHS MBA's from Harvard – Donna Merritt and Edward Lee. Merritt has no connection to China but a big bank account. Lee immigrated with his parents as an infant. He never visited China until a few years ago and now he goes twice a year.

Nell meets with Lee in a coffee shop. He has a man bun but a charming personality. Nell asks about the coffee shop. Lee explains that his girlfriend lives in Shanghai but every time she's in town, they live in this coffee shop. The girlfriend comes to LA twice a year, he goes to Shanghai twice a year. Nell leaves the coffee shop with Deeks waiting outside. He wanted a chai tea and gluten free muffin. She brought him nothing.

Callen and Sam pull up at Donna Merritt's house. Callen is stiff and sore again. His calves are killing him. As they walk to the house, the front door is open – the window is broken. There are files all over the dining room table and Ming Wah is dead in the kitchen. Wah was shot twice and Donna Merritt is in the wind.

Eric explains to Granger that Donna Merritt set up several shell corporations to steal from both Homeland Security and Zhang Kiu. Granger thinks Harvard would be so proud. Eric estimates that she's taken about $400 million. Granger would like to turn Merritt over to Kiu. Eric also got the toxicology report on Jesse Evans. He was poisoned by a chemical used in the fake purses but Kiu doesn't have access to the chemical – Donna Merritt moved it in her fake companies. Granger wants the team to find Merritt.

At Merritt's house, Callen and Sam are looking through Merritt's paperwork piles. Callen says this is why he doesn’t have a lot of belongings. If someone has to find something at Callen's, "And I have," Sam reminds him, it is right out in plain sight. "Or fake walls and a steel vault." Sam realizes the safest place for the black-market items and for Donna Merritt would be her DHS office.

Callen, Sam, Deeks and Nell arrive at DHS. There is empty office space in the new DHS office building. They arrive just as Merritt is being brought out by Kiu's men. Deeks and Nell enter the building through the back. A storage area is empty – no drugs or fake purses. In the front of the building, Callen and Sam confront several of Kiu's men. Deeks sees Merritt being dragged down a hall. He climbs the outside of some stairs and captures one of the men. The final going after Donna Merritt is knocked out by Nell. Merritt winds up with the man's gun.

Callen and Sam corner Donna Merritt with Deeks and Nell catching up. "So, let me get this straight, we just risked our lives to protect a known traitor?" Nell asks. Sam agrees but she has info they need.

In the armory, Nell puts away her weapon. Granger arrives. Merritt confessed thinking she'd get a lenient sentence. She won't. Granger asks Nell how the day went. Nell thought it went well but she has big shoes to fill. Granger agrees. Nell wants to step up, she wants to be there for Deeks but she doesn't like the reason she's working with him. Granger asks if that's why she is storing her weapon. Nell knows Granger is looking for Kensi's replacement. He tells her he may be but he may not be. But he wants her to know that she's not Kensi's replacement. She's in the field to honor Kensi. Granger wants "Jones" to call him Granger and not "Assistant Director". She thinks that's weird but he insists – it's an order. And a lovely scene.

Hetty arrives at the hospital to find a sleeping Deeks and a still unconscious Kensi. After calling to Deeks several times as "Mr. Deeks" - and he does not wake up – Hetty yells "Martin!" and Deeks thinks he missed the school bus. When he sees Hetty, he says "you're not my Mom." "Oh, hell no," is Hetty's reply. All is done with great humor and affection. Deeks is cold, he's pulled his arms out of his shirt sleeves in an attempt to stay warm. Hetty asks about Kensi. There isn't much to report – she did respond to some pain. Hetty sends Deeks home – she needs him on his game.

Deeks kisses Kensi on the forehead and tells her he loves her. Deeks wishes Hetty a good night and Hetty says "Good night, Martin." Deeks wants her to go easy on the Martin. Once Deeks is gone, Hetty tells Kensi she knows Kensi has been through a lot but they need her. It is time to wake up. Hetty orders "Miss Blye" to squeeze her hand. Kensi's hand moves a little. Hetty tells Kensi to rest.

What head canon can be formed from here: Granger and Julia would have been interesting. Hetty barking at an unconscious Kensi was not.

Episode number: Fourth episode of season eight, 172nd episode overall.

#NCIS: Los Angeles Rewatch #NCIS: Los Angeles #NCIS: LA #NCIS Los Angeles #ncis la

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nofomoartworld · 8 years ago

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Hyperallergic: American Artists’ Fraught Responses to the First World War

Installation view of World War I and American Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (photo courtesy the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia)

PHILADELPHIA — When war broke out in Europe in August 1914, the United States declared neutrality. President Woodrow Wilson feared that entering the conflict would cause civil unrest at home as many United States citizens had come from the nations that were now at war. In the end, the US was only officially active in World War I for 18 months, from April 1917 to November 1918, but as the exhibition World War I and American Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts argues, the Great War had a deep and complicated impact on American artists both before and after the country entered the conflict, pushing them to change their visual language as they debated, promoted, and processed the historical events.

Marsden Hartley, “Portrait” (ca 1914–15), oil on canvas, 32 1/4 × 21 1/2 in, the Collection of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, bequest of Hudson D. Walker from the Ione and Hudson D. Walker Collection

The exhibition begins in 1914, when much of the country was apprehensive about participating in the conflict, even though the US’s economic bias leaned heavily toward the Allies. Such split allegiances are explored through the pairing of Childe Hassam and Marsden Hartley. Painting in New York, Hassam depicted patriotic, impressionist cityscapes filled with American and Allied flags; while living in Berlin, Hartley created a series of elegiac images in memory of his lover Karl von Freyburg, a German military officer. Though Hartley claimed his work was neither pro-German, nor political, his moving images capture the conflicted emotions of one mourning the loss of a forbidden love.

Childe Hassam, “Flags on 57th Street, Winter 1918 (1918), oil on canvas, 35 3/4 × 23 3/4 in, the New-York Historical Society, bequest of Julia B. Engel (photo © the New-York Historical Society)

American neutrality was tested as early as 1915, when German U-boats attacked the British passenger ship the Lusitania, killing nearly 1,200 people on board, including 128 US citizens. The attack outraged the American public and became a popular subject for artists, like Winsor McCay, who attempted to record the event based on first-hand accounts in his short animated film “The Sinking of Lusitania” (1918), which depicts the shocking speed with which the ship sank, as bodies fall over the sides in an unending cascade. For interest groups attempting to gather US support for the Allies, the incident became a rallying cry, as is evident in Fred Spear’s poster “Enlist” (1915). Commissioned and printed by the Boston Committee for Public Safety, the poster tapped into the belief that the incident had been an attack on innocent lives, showing a mother and child caught in a tender embrace as they drown in the cold ocean.

Henry Glintenkamp, “Physically Fit” (1917), published in The Masses, October 1917, crayon and India ink on board, 20 7/8 × 16 1/2 in, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Prints and Photographs Division

After the United States entered the war in 1917, the government used art to establish a powerful media environment saturated with seductive, sentimental, and nationalist propaganda. In much of the imagery, the Axis enemies are barbaric apes and murderous fiends, while US soldiers are strong, sexy, and clean, adored by their loving wives and children who stay at home and buy war bonds. Yet participation in World War I was deeply unpopular among US citizens, and political cartoons published in The Masses, such as Henry Glintenkamp’s “Physically Fit” (1917), liken the draft to a death sentence, as a skeleton measures a fit young man for a coffin. These critical opinions, however, were quickly silenced through official censorship efforts, which criminalized anti-war speech and encouraged people to spy on their neighbors. These laws prompted citizens to focus on the enemy “within,” partially in an attempt to convince the American public that the war was not just, as the famous song says, “over there.”

Charles Burchfield, “The East Wind” (1918), watercolor on paper, 18 x 22 1/2 in, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, bequest of A. Conger Goodyear, 1966 (photo courtesy Albright-Knox Art Gallery/Art Resource, NY)

Georgia O’Keeffe, “The Flag” (1918), watercolor on paper, 11 15/16 × 8 3/16 in, Milwaukee Art Museum, gift of Mrs. Harry Lynde Bradley (© 2016 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artists Rights Society, ARS, New York; photo by Larry Sanders)

Despite strict censorship, apprehension about the war is still evident in the contemporaneous canvases of many American artists. The young Charles Burchfield recorded his growing fear of having to fight in his diaries as he waited for his draft number to be called. Although he later denied that the war had affected his imagery, it is impossible not to see his mounting anxiety in “The East Wind” (1918), in which a large, skull-like form threatens to envelop a vulnerable house. The war found its way into the work of Georgia O’Keeffe in a more mournful and conflicted manner. Her younger brother Alexis enlisted almost immediately after the US joined the conflict, and she found herself both confused by and in awe of his devout patriotism. Executed in 1918, O’Keeffe’s “The Flag” shows a red flag against a deep blue sky, which seems to seep into and overcome it. Throughout the war, red flags were commonly raised at socialist and anarchist meetings, where pacifism and obstructing the draft were often discussed, and with this in mind, the work seems to evoke the battle between O’Keeffe’s red apprehension and her brother’s true blue allegiance.

Installation view of World War I and American Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts featuring “Gassed” (1919) by John SInger Sargent (photo courtesy the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia)

The unique skills of artists were also put to work as part of the official war effort. Edward Steichen, for example, was made chief of the photographic section of the American Expeditionary Forces, while Burchfield designed camouflage, and others made medical drawings and drew maps. In 1918, the British government commissioned John Singer Sargent to make a picture that captured Anglo-American cooperation on the front. After spending three-months in France, the artist decided to portray a harrowing sight — a line of gassed and blindfolded men. Despite the tragedy of its subject matter, Sargent’s “Gassed” (1919) holds fast to the Edwardian idea that war is noble. Though wounded, the soldiers still grasp their rifles; though blind, they walk in ordered formation. In marked contrast, George Bellows showed the war to be marred by dishonor. Unable to fight because of his age, Bellows never saw the conflict in Europe and, ironically, the former champion of visual journalism based his depictions solely on articles and published reports. In a series of lithographs inspired by the Bryce Report, Bellows portrays in lurid detail the war crimes committed by the German army as they marched through neutral Belgium in 1914: woman are raped, families are murdered, and babies are skewered on bayonets.

The question of what it means to be a witness and to depict the experience of war is woven through the exhibition. Artists like Claggett Wilson and Horace Pippin went to France not to draw but to fight and both only depicted the conflict after they had been wounded, relying on memories that haunted them. The realism in Wilson’s watercolors encompasses more than mere description, mining the psychological dimensions of the conflict: soldiers march across fields of grass that have turned yellow under the mustard gas and a line of ghostly enemy soldiers wearing gas masks appears in the purple mist beyond an expanse of twisted barbed wire. Wilson also paired each image with a description of the memory he depicted, for, as one captions says, he was trying to capture “not how it looks but how it feels and sounds and smells.”

Claggett Wilson, “Dance of Death” (ca 1919), watercolor and pencil on paperboard, 16 3/4 × 22 1/2 in, Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of Alice H. Rossin (photo clourtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC / Art Resource, NY)

Horace Pippin, “The End of the War: Starting Home” (1930–33), oil on canvas, 26 × 30 1/16 in, Philadelphia Museum of Art, gift of Robert Carlen, 1941

Pippin completed “The End of the War: Starting Home” (1930–33) more than a decade after returning to the United States from the battlefields in France, and the painting condenses the traumatic wartime experiences documented in his journals into a single chaotic composition. At center, amid the melee, a white German solider, raising his arms in surrender, is confronted by a black American solider wielding a bayonet. Though Pippin captures the triumph of the African American soldiers, in their dark uniforms, they almost seem to blend in with the blackened background, reminding the viewer that despite the initial flurry of homecoming glory that met the black soldiers who gallantly served their country, they were quickly made invisible by racial segregation at home.

Violet Oakley, “Henry Howard Houston Woodward” (1921), oil on canvas, 53 × 35 in, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, gift of Dr. and Mrs. George Woodward

The exhibition ends with works created after the war that memorialize those who died — as seen in Violet Oakley’s portrait of the lost solider Henry Howard Houston Woodward — or question the effects of the conflict, as seen in Carl Hoeckner’s “The Homecoming of 1918” (1919), which depicts an infinite mass of emaciated and traumatized war victims. Such images clearly illustrate the fact that by the 1930s many Americans saw the United States’ participation in the conflict to be controversial and deeply flawed, leading us to question how we remember a period that cannot be reduced to a simple fight between good and evil. Many later historical accounts have recast World War I and the unstable peace that followed as merely a prelude to World War II. The exhibition at PAFA serves as a corrective of sorts to the historical accounts that downplay the complexity and importance of World War I for American artists, providing a more unsettling and honest picture of a nation’s reaction to it. Concluding with poignant images of reflection, the exhibition upends previous declarations that the Great War was ever the “Forgotten War.”

Carl Hoeckner, “The Homecoming of 1918” (1919), oil on panel, 57 × 83 3/4 in (courtesy the John & Susan Horseman Collection of American Art)

Installation view of World War I and American Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (photo courtesy the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia)

Laura Brey, “Enlist — On Which Side of the Window Are YOU?” (1917), poster, 39 × 26 in, courtesy of the New-York Historical Society (photo © the New-York Historical Society)

Harry Ryle Hopps, “Destroy This Mad Brute — Enlist” (1917), poster, 41 15/16 × 27 7/8 in (courtesy the Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin)

E. G. Renesch, publisher “True Blue” (1919), poster, 20 1/2 x 16 1/8 in, the Wolfsonian — Florida International University, Miami Beach, The Mitchell Wolfson Jr. Collection

World War I and American Art continues at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (118-128 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) through April 9,

The post American Artists’ Fraught Responses to the First World War appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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