Duane Hanson's sculptures are currently on show at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery. I wasn't aware of that when I cycled past and decided to pop in - or, rather, I'd forgotten. So it was the best way to experience it...walking in and being confronted by a woman at a flea market:
A momentary confusion - or, as we say now, a brief wtf? - and then it clicked. I do enjoy moments like that. Put a smile on my face as I wandered round. Though, to be honest, it wasn't a long wander round. You'd be hard pushed to take more than 15 minutes. It's not a big exhibition.
The pieces (sculptures? people?) date from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s (Hanson died in 1996), so they capture something of that particular time. Douglas Coupland (from the exhibition catalogue) has some interesting things to say about that, about the critics' disdain for what they saw as Hanson's easy populism, and about the difference between archetypes - what he believes Hanson dealt with - and stereotypes - what the critics believed he dealt with. The link with Edward Hopper is also, I think, worth making. Coupland no doubt overdoes Hanson's significance, but that's the nature of this kind of essay.
One point he overlooks, though, is that weird feeling of dissonance that you get, especially with the kind of hyper-realism that Hanson goes for. These sculptures are amazingly life-like. A major part of their appeal, surely, is that frisson we always get when confronted with human figures which aren't human - with, that is, the uncanny. But perhaps he's deliberately ignoring that side of it, because it smacks more of the circus or the sideshow - the populism sneered at by the critics - rather than the high art status that he wants for Hanson's work.
Critics, what do they know? Hanson is great, a sharp observer, funny, sad and as you say a bit weird thanks to the brilliance of his execution. Thanks for this, I will go to see it.
Posted by: NicoleS | June 25, 2015 at 12:12 PM
What's interesting is that the effect is greatly enhanced in photos. With them, I really do have to be told that these are not real people, otherwise it would never have occurred to me that they are not.
In the photos, the illusion is perfect, so you don't get that "uncanny" thing.
Is this an extreme case of the camera lying? I suspect so.
And did the artist realise this? Probably.
Posted by: Brian Micklethwait | June 25, 2015 at 12:58 PM