Comedy Time
- 1995
- Acrylic Gel
- 24" x 28"
Harriet had a few new things she wanted to try out here but a new layout wasn’t one of them, and the dazzling Comedy Time unabashedly appropriates the layout of the earlier and larger Farewell to Old Friends (1994). Compared to her earlier Frank Sinatra (1992), this highly disciplined, tightly composed work sets out on a very different course, yet both paintings are executed with such conviction and self-assurance that one never gets the sense of an artist in the early stages of trying to find her own way. Rather the paintings look like mature works of the genre from two accomplished artists who 30 years ago might have shared a studio.
As she did with CATS and several other works, there is an inside joke or two that provide a fitting counterpoint to all of this Op-infused, structured intensity. In her depiction of the famous clock scene from Harold Lloyd’s 1923 silent classic Safety Last!, our hero is precariously balanced on an outdoor ledge, clinging to the minute hand of a large clock 12 stories above downtown Los Angeles. Unwilling to pass up a good joke, and probably eager to spoof her newfound perfectionism as well, Harriet decides to go for the gusto by eradicating two o’clock.
Time flies when you’re having fun.
