PALO Gallery is excited to present The Heart of War, an exhibition featuring a series of mixed media artworks excavating the buried memory of the Harlem Hellfighters by the artist Deanio X. The artist is known for rooting his work in research from diasporic histories and taking inspiration from a wide range of visual and literary sources. Said of X in Art Plugged: “Materials are central to his explorative process, as he employs an array of media including chalk, charcoal, ink, acrylic and oil, on unexpected surfaces like wood and aluminum.”
These works are guided by the autobiographical memoirs and war reportage artworks of Corporal Horace Pippin. The Harlem Hellfighters fought like demons on the frontlines of WW1’s trenches, spending more time in combat than any other American unit, losing zero ground to the enemy or men to capture. Though they were war heroes, the Hellfighters’ success at home in America was suppressed as not to glorify African American potentiality, a threat to the cultural and socioeconomic status quo as maintained by obstructive segregation laws.
This show does the Harlem Hellfighters justice, elevating their story from the forgotten trenches of American history and concretizing their importance, forever to be seen in Deanio X’s gripping visualizations of black military life in WWI.
