The Whitney Museum of American Art has established something of a tradition of poor curatorial decisions, which manifest themselves in exhibitions in two registers. On the one hand, there are those paeans to High Modernism, wherein the exhibit, largely by means of multiplicity, hammers home the singularity of an abstract artistic vision. On the other and, I believe, more generative hand, there are those Whitney shows that celebrate the diversity of artistic practice in the pluralistic post-modern art world. The latter type is of course exemplified by the museums Biennials. Although much of the art in these shows is trite and prosaic, I regard them to be largely generative, for the ways in which they expedite the development of new artistic expression. It was in fact this very sort of relativism which allowed for figurative art in the Age of Abstraction. Hence, it is appropriate that the Whitney exhibit the provocative post-abstraction figuration of Duane Hanson. Whitney shows often wax esoteric, and while catering to an elite audience is not intrinsically problematic, they should also feature art that will appeal to a larger audience, and help promote an understanding of contemporary American art. Hanson’s work, self-described as down to earth, non-elitist (Hanson, press kit) is indeed antithetical to all that is esoteric. For those unaware, Duane Hanson does perfectly mimetic life-casts of American types; he installs these dummies in their appropriate milieus. Among the types are the construction worker, the football player, the custodian, the tourist, the house painter, and most ironically appropriate the policeman (ironic for the fact that the dummy looks so much like the Whitney guards). It is this sort of astounding verisimilitude that characterizes Hanson’s work, and also, sometimes eclipses more profound meanings and implications. It is also the quality that gives the art a populist leaning. John Deere lovingly put Man on a Lawnmower (1995) on its home page. Had an artist featured the tractor company’s product in a less mimetic fashion, it seems unlikely that the work would have found its way to said web page. The American types who Hanson depicts seem to be those who drool for mimesis This populist love for exacting verisimilitude is quite old. Trompe-l’oeiil, still life painting etc. designed to be so lifelike as to create a three-dimensional illusion of reality (O.E.D.), was extremely popular in nineteenth century America, with a crowd much larger than the educational elite. Although the advent of photography has changed the way that photorealistic art relates to a larger visual discourse, we can still acknowledge the American populist leaning to mimesis. Hanson seems to identify with this populist set; I say so not only for the fact that he produces a kind of art long popular with this group. I say so also for the fact that he portrays himself as he does the other American types (Seated Artist 1971 and Self Portrait with Model 1979 (not pictured)). As noted on page twenty of the exhibition catalog, Hanson’s work almost never refers to the New York art world. For these reasons, it seems evident that Hanson is in touch with the aesthetic needs of the non-elite, non-Whitney set American.
	Indeed, one who may not apprehend the philosophical implications of a Hanson sculpture can admire it for its amazing technique of rendering people The work is formally fantastic, and so, for those without the tools to read these visual texts philosophically and psychologically, they can read formally, and still be moved to awe. Tooled, one can read Hanson’s work in a more complex fashion. The relationships between the subjects and their accompanying objects are potent sources of implicated meaning. The subjects are often surrounded by banal consumer goods. Implied in this juxtaposition is the question of humanity’s relationship to industry. Implied in that is a critique of hegemony as deployed through capitalist products. Hanson quietly queries the import of these goods, and their influence on peoples’ psychologies. The inanimate objects (football helmet, lawnmower, etc.) are not replicas; they are real.; the flesh is replicated. So, what are usually considered fake (consumer goods) become the most real elements in a Hanson piece. Thus, Hanson’s work implies a critique of our notions of reality in a capitalist consumer society.
Hanson’s work also implies a critique of our notions about experiencing art. The art’s astounding resemblance to life inspires in most a certain awe; this awe is thoroughly unachievable by looking at a reproduction of his work. Producing work that defies reproducibility works towards a restoration of art’s aura, which Walter Benjamin so famously declared lost Although I have included some reproductions of the work, they are by no means intended to replicate the auratic quality of Hanson’s sculpture. Confrontation of Benjamin and critique of capitalist culture are implied; indeed, so too are questions of reality, banality authenticity, Americanness, and so on. Multiple meanings can be read into these stunning forms. What remains crucial is that meaning operates on the level of implication. The work works against fixedness of meaning and towards an instigation of discourse on a number of topics, formally aesthetic as well as political, psychological, and philosophical. Such movements persuade me to understand Duane Hanson’s works to be post- modern. And since the Whitney has, for years, intermittently insisted its approval of post- modernism, it is nice to see them finally embrace Duane Hanson’s sculpture. Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. New York: Schocken Books, 1968. Duane Hanson : A Survey of His Work from the ‘30s to the ‘90s. Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Museum of Art, 1998.