Traveller 1988

Duane Hanson, sometime in the late twentieth century, cast a sculpture of a traveller. He looks pretty beat, right? Slumped against his luggage, a suitcase for a pillow. What gets me about Hanson’s work is the skin. He’s so meticulous, painting every little detail onto the cast: the freckles, the folds, the sweat. It's like he's trying to trick us into thinking this is a real person. But it's the small imperfections that give it away – a slightly waxy sheen, a certain stiffness. And yet, there's something deeply human about this sculpture. The guy is exhausted. The garish shirt and colourful shorts tell a story. Hanson captured a kind of Everyman. Think about the paintings of the German artist, Otto Dix; they share a similarly critical eye, challenging our assumptions about what it means to be alive. It’s kind of funny, but it’s also deeply unsettling. Like art is supposed to be.