Duane Hanson | Olivier Mosset

I do not love fiction, I love history.
—Duane Hanson

A painting is simply a material object but, because of the situation, the discourse, the history—it’s also inevitably something else.
—Olivier Mosset

Gagosian is pleased to present an exhibition of works by Duane Hanson and Olivier Mosset.

The hyperrealistic sculptures of Duane Hanson and the minimalist paintings of Olivier Mosset are brought together in this exhibition for the first time. The two artists, radically different and equally extreme in their respective lines of inquiry, seek, each in his own way, to test the boundaries of human perception.

For Duane Hanson, highly detailed and precisely realized figuration became a tool through which to resist objectivity and neutrality. Hanson’s startlingly lifelike human figures, which emphasize American working class subjects, have distinguished his oeuvre over forty years. At the beginning of his career, Hanson created tableaux of traumatic and violent social upheaval, such as Abortion (1966) and Race Riot (1969–71), many of which he destroyed later, wishing to be remembered for the more subtly evocative works of his mature period, which include the exhibited Window Washer (1984) and Housepainter I (1984–88). Hanson’s individual figures of ordinary Americans, evolving out of precedents including nineteenth-century French Realism, evoke cathartic narrative and pathos. His precision with small details such as hair strands, the elasticity of skin, the textures of clothing, and the expressiveness of a face lost in thought arouse strong emotions ranging from empathy to revulsion.