The Museum Frieder Burda Presents Uncanny Realities Duane Hanson and Gregory Crewdson on view through 6 March 2011.

Their works confuse and touch the observer. Works by the two American artists Duane Hanson (1925 – 1996) and Gregory Crewdson (born in 1962) are at the centre of the exhibition at the Museum Frieder Burda.

Gregory Crewdson: Untitled (Railway Children), ‘Beneath the Roses’ 2003 Digital carbon print 144,8 x 223,5 cm Gregory Crewdson, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery, New York © Gregory Crewdson, 2010

With his realistic sculptures, the American artist Duane Hanson has become a synonym for contemporary realism in contemporary art. Typical motives are average people like housewives, waitresses, car dealers, janitors. Posture and expression of these figures are very close to reality. The photographer Gregory Crewdson arranges his large format pictures with cineastic arrangements and lets the abyss behind every-day life scenes become visible.

Both artists present people in their everyday lives, with hopes, yearnings and broken dreams. People we usually do not notice, aged and marked by reality, by life itself. While Hanson shapes his life-sized figures with a great deal of sympathy, Crewdson rather spreads a gloomy and depressing atmosphere in his pictures of lonely people in their houses, gardens and in streets.

The exhibition at the Frieder Burda Museum presents about 30 figures by Duane Hanson, mainly from the artist’s estate, in dialogue with 20 large format works from the series ”Beneath the Roses“ by the photographer Gregory Crewdson. The photographies are mainly owned by the artist himself.

Götz Adriani and Patricia Kamp, curators of the exhibition

The curators Götz Adriani and Patricia Kamp are not aiming at a direct confrontation. They are rather presenting two artists who work with different materials, but deal with very similar topics. Both artists, Hanson and Crewdson, are grand when it comes to arranging their art. Crewdson always puts very much effort into the arrangments of the scenes in his pictures, and Hanson always keeps an eye on his close surroundings.

Museum Frieder Burda
Lichtentaler Allee 8b
D-76530 Baden-Baden
Telefon +49 (0)7221 / 3 98 98-0
Telefax +49 (0)7221 / 3 98 98-30
www.museum-frieder-burda.de

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1. Museum Frieder Burda 2011 Preview
2. Major summer exhibition at the Museum Frieder Burda: “Miró. The Colours of Poetry”
3. Museum of Fine Arts Opens Dreams and Realities: Latin American Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors