Duane Hanson: Sculptures of Life
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, until 23 February

The warders at Edinburgh’s Gallery of Modern Art tell me they are careful never to stand still near Duane Hanson’s lifesize replicas of everyday Americans – visitors start staring at them by mistake. This exhibition of 30 sculptures, including the gallery’s own much-loved pair, Tourists, is the world’s first major retrospective of Hanson’s work since his death in 1996.

Hanson’s career began in an era when formal abstraction was all the rage, but he chose instead to vent his anger at the social evils of his time through deeply realistic means. The partly-decomposed corpse of a gangland victim, limbs severed, and rock chained to his neck, makes a sober introduction to those who expect to see nothing more upsetting in this exhibition than mundanity.

But perhaps mundanity is the most upsetting; from the late sixties until his death, Hanson was preoccupied with the ordinary people of ‘middle America’, the ignored waitresses and builders, old ladies and bored tourists, with their cellulite and wrinkles, the flesh bulging around bra straps and their finger nails chewed and dirty. He cast their body parts from real people (including himself and his children), he painted them with incredible attention to detail, and he bought their clothes in second-hand shops.

These worn-out characters adopt static poses, bored, blank, resting, tired, and it feels positively rude to stare (although some of them, cleverly positioned, do stare back). This is a chance that we rarely get – not since we were children could we really look hard at strangers, examining every wrinkle. This unique opportunity allows us to examine our own mortality, to see the ravages of time and experience, and to pity those whose unrewarding lives are crushing their potential, day by day.

Some may mutter ‘one-trick wonder’, others ask ‘is it art?’. Yes, of course it is art, and yes, this one trick is Hanson’s particular style of portraiture – and it works. But there is one danger: these people are American. They drink coke, sit in diners and wear Hawaiian shirts. We can point and laugh, if we want to, and thank the Lord that we are not like that. Or perhaps we should thank the Lord that Duane Hanson was not born in Glasgow…

Catrìona Black, Sunday Herald 22.12.02