Duane Hanson
Photographs 1977 - 1995

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Although Hanson began making realistic sculptures in 1967, he introduced an Instant Camera into his artistic process in 1977. His focus was never in glamorizing or idealizing his subjects; rather he photographed and proceeded to realistically sculpt everyday people – construction workers on a lunch break, tourists donning brightly printed shirts, or a high school student quietly resting. He photographed his subjects repeatedly, to visually record the slight differences in posing or prop placement. For his sculpture Tourists II, 1988, the shifting of an arm or the exclusion of sunglasses differentiates the images from each other and creates a subtle, yet powerful narrative between them.

Although intended as vehicles to facilitate sculpture, the photographs stand strongly and elegantly on their own. A vertical grid entitled Cowboy, 1984, contains twenty images. Viewers see the cowboy in subtly different poses, each reflecting a minor change – his hand placement, the shifting of the hips, or the adjustment of his lasso. The cowboy appears as though cast in a blue fog, which heightens both the grid’s beauty and the intrigue it engenders.

This exhibition allows the public to view and contemplate the photographic sketches that predated and inspired Hanson’s monumental sculptures, while securing the artist a place within the history of serial imaging alongside Eadweard Muybridge and Andy Warhol.