Tour of Duty

Sculpture by Ken Hruby

©Reviewed by Rich McKown, Art New England Dec/Jan 2002

Soldiering is an honorable and necessary profession. Among the post-Vietnam generation, the man and women who defend us are often shunned and dishonored. In peacetime, the role of the military is frequently disputed - soldiers and civilians alike question its missions. Casualties within our own forces are no longer tolerated. So we wage war by remote control, dropping bombs and missiles from airplanes.

The artist Ken Hruby was once a career infantry officer who learned to fight the enemy hand to hand on the ground, as soldiers have traditionally battled since time immemorial. His large installation-sized pieces expose us to the physicallity of the states of battle as well as its aftermath. These sculptures include castings of body parts, specifically feet and ears, and gear such as boots, dogtags, parachutes, and rifles as well as crutches, stretchers, and artificial legs used by the fortunate soldiers recuperating from their battle wounds. Many of these installation works are knows to gallery-goers who are familiar with Hruby's work: Short Arm Inspection, Juggernaut, Minefields of Memory, and Free Fall.

This show is a small retrospective of his twenty-year career as an artist. Carl Belz's articulate catalog essay notes the precedents of Uccello and Velasquez as Hruby's inspiration. To these painters, I would add the war photographers Mathew Brady, Robert Capa, and Larry Burrows, who, in their respective generations, documented war's carnage without romanticizing it. Hruby's work, by its tangible presence and intelligent wit, engages us in a deeper understanding of the sacrifice and the honor of the military beyond our own fathers and brothers' reticence and nightmares.