Duane Hanson, installation view, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, photo by Luke Hayes
Entering the Sackler gallery you’re immediately confronted with a round, pink clad woman, on a plastic chair. Head encased in a large white hat, her hands are poised over a magazine, her freckled forearms escaping her sleeves. It is only after a moment or two you realise she is not breathing. “Flea Market Lady”, 1990, is the first of the late Duane Hanson’s (1925-1996) uncanny sculptures to welcome viewers into this survey show; one of many life-sized casts of North American citizens that Hanson made throughout his forty-year career.
Hanson’s figures are disturbing. They fascinate and repel in equal measure. Nothing escapes the artist’s attentive eye. There is even texture to the skin, the ragged stray hairs that escape the pores – Hanson has even created porous plastic. Most of my time wandering the gallery revolves around this kind of fact; like many I find myself simply dazed at the eerie accuracy of how blue veins track down elderly calves, slightly fading bruises seep from under capped sleeves, freckles are placed with intense care over wrinkling cheeks.
Duane Hanson, installation view, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, photo by Luke Hayes
Duane Hanson, installation view, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, photo by Luke Hayes
Hanson’s expertise is reflected in the postures of his characters: shoulders stooped, necks drawn down. The evident “ordinary” that the artist seeks to project manifests in the most trivial of details, details that confuse and confound. One particularly well placed figure, “Man with Hand Cart”, 1975, causes many mishaps as people inadvertently wait patiently for him to move, apologising as they almost bump into him as they pass through to what they believe to be the next exhibit – before realizing with shock they have already found it.
Duane Hanson, installation view, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, photo by Luke Hayes
Hanson’s aim was to concentrate specifically on “those that do not stand out” and the entire exhibition reads somewhat like an anti-Madame Tussauds; rather than opulence we are shown the people society has neglected. “Homeless Person”, 1991, is set just to the side of the main entrance. People stop, take photographs, let their eyes devour every facial detail for hours. In reality the real man may never have received such attention. It’s a sobering thought, and one that works for every figure in the exhibition—most chillingly perhaps for “Trash”, 1987, the cellophane-encased fetus tossed in a rubbish bin, so camouflaged among the debris of everyday life that many visitors fail to see it at first glance.
Duane Hanson, installation view, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, photo by Luke Hayes
The uncomfortable yet fascinating pull of this exhibition is the allure of watching how exactly those around you respond to Hanson’s creations. Watching others snap selfies with the unknowingly immortalised models, this exhibition raises timely questions. Why is it we are more willing to interact with muted and lifeless copies of humans than the individuals themselves? Troubling questions, and a troubling show, but one that draws you back again and again—to stare.
Text by Thea Hawlin
Duane Hanson is on at Serpentine Sackler Gallery until 13 September 2015