Duane hanson biography sculptures by the sea

Duane Hanson’s incredibly lifelike depictions of everyday Americans — sticky sunbathers, tourists, house painters, cowboys — can be unsettling in their degrees of realism. Rounding a corner in a museum exhibition to find one sitting on a bench, shoulders slouched, gazing into the distance or listening to a WalkMan is an often jarring experience.

It’s always a trip watching others interact with the works, too.

Duane hanson sculptures

Little kids are at first apprehensive, as if Queenie — a female custodian — might come alive and shake her feather duster at them for gawking. Eventually, they become more comfortable and go in for a closer look.

Though Hanson’s work encourages thought about American class stratification and consumer culture, the question most viewers come away with is: “how did he do it?”

Duane Hanson Polaroids: 1979-1994, a new exhibition opening tonight at the Aperture Foundation in New York City, sheds a little m