{"id":79490,"date":"2014-11-12T19:27:13","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T00:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=79490"},"modified":"2014-11-13T10:37:56","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T15:37:56","slug":"security-guard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/","title":{"rendered":"Security Guard"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Duane Hanson, Security Guard<\/i>, 1990, autobody filler, polychromed in oil, mixed media, with accessories, 71″ x 26″ x 13″. \u00a9 The Estate of Duane Hanson. Photography by Robert McKeever. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery.<\/p><\/div>\n

Duane Hanson\u2019s Security Guard<\/em> is on display at Gagosian Gallery\u2019s Park and Seventy-fifth Street location through December 3<\/a>. Hanson, who died in 1996, is known for his doggedly realistic sculptures of Joe and Jane Sixpack: the paunchy, unremarkable janitors, shoppers, joggers, tourists, and deliverymen of the world. Hanson\u2019s working-class men and women are always in some form of repose, wearing expressions that range from the melancholic to the merely phlegmatic. These are people with whom the world has had its way\u2014people used to being seen through. They have body hair. They have hangnails and bruises, varicose veins.<\/p>\n

Hanson\u2019s sculptures, given the commonness of their subjects, are almost suspiciously accessible, and so the temptation is to dismiss them as condescending or facile\u2014or just tacky, a bid for the same kind of gee-whiz mimesis on display at Madame Tussaud\u2019s<\/a>. They are, after all, uncanny likenesses, and it\u2019s easy to get tripped up on that, or to marvel at the painstaking craftsmanship. Hanson made casts from real people<\/a>, and for maintenance he\u2019d send envelopes of human hair to museums<\/a> with instructions on how to attach it properly; he went to great lengths to produce convincing skin tones. All that\u2019s very impressive, but it\u2019d have you think the sculptures are just workmanlike forays into photorealism.<\/p>\n

And in the wrong setting, they may well be. I could imagine how a roomful of Hanson\u2019s work might register as taunting rather than haunting\u2014in aggregate, the statues could lose their subtlety, all but daring you to appreciate their lifelikeness. But Gagosian Gallery has done a shrewd thing with Security Guard<\/em>: they\u2019ve put him on his own. He\u2019s leaning against the wall of an otherwise empty space, patrolling nothing, alone. You can see him in there from the street.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy art is not about fooling people,\u201d Hanson once said. \u201cIt\u2019s the human attitudes I\u2019m after\u2014fatigue, a bit of frustration, rejection. To me, there is a kind of beauty in all this.\u201d<\/p>\n

By himself, hand in pocket, walkie-talkie at the ready, surrounded by white walls and looking at none of them, Security Guard<\/em> evokes the whole spectrum of Weltschmerz. Stare at him for sixty seconds and you see a bored, stoical man, an intimate of blankness, maybe solving a Rubik\u2019s Cube in his head or thinking about supper. Stare at him for three minutes and you think, Maybe a widower. Stare at him for five minutes and you want to jot down the number of a suicide hotline, press it into his breast pocket. Take lunch, you want to say with a clap on his shoulder, Go out and get some air.<\/p>\n

But he won\u2019t move. As the critic Sebastian Smee wrote of another Hanson piece<\/a>, \u201cHe is not waiting for death, exactly. But death sure is what his life has in mind for him. And for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Duane Hanson\u2019s Security Guard is on display at Gagosian Gallery\u2019s Park and Seventy-fifth Street location through December 3. Hanson, who died in 1996, is known for his doggedly realistic sculptures of Joe and Jane Sixpack: the paunchy, unremarkable janitors, shoppers, joggers, tourists, and deliverymen of the world. Hanson\u2019s working-class men and women are always in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2384],"tags":[35,16012,16014,7011,16015,15626,13916,14034,16013],"class_list":["post-79490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-look","tag-art","tag-duane-hanson","tag-gagosian-gallery","tag-loneliness","tag-madame-tussauds","tag-mimesis","tag-openings","tag-sculptures","tag-security-guard"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSecurity Guard by Dan Piepenbring<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"November 12, 2014 \u2013 Duane Hanson\u2019s Security Guard is on display at Gagosian Gallery\u2019s Park and Seventy-fifth Street location through December 3. Hanson, who died in 1996, is\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Security Guard by Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 12, 2014 \u2013 Duane Hanson\u2019s Security Guard is on display at Gagosian Gallery\u2019s Park and Seventy-fifth Street location through December 3. Hanson, who died in 1996, is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-11-13T00:27:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-11-13T15:37:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/hanso-1990.0002.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1220\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1850\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dan Piepenbring\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8\"},\"headline\":\"Security Guard\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-11-13T00:27:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-11-13T15:37:56+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/\"},\"wordCount\":522,\"commentCount\":8,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/hanso-1990.0002.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"art\",\"Duane Hanson\",\"Gagosian Gallery\",\"loneliness\",\"Madame Tussaud\u2019s\",\"mimesis\",\"openings\",\"sculptures\",\"Security Guard\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Look\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/\",\"name\":\"Security Guard by Dan Piepenbring\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/hanso-1990.0002.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-11-13T00:27:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-11-13T15:37:56+00:00\",\"description\":\"November 12, 2014 \u2013 Duane Hanson\u2019s Security Guard is on display at Gagosian Gallery\u2019s Park and Seventy-fifth Street location through December 3. Hanson, who died in 1996, is\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/hanso-1990.0002.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/hanso-1990.0002.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Security Guard\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8\",\"name\":\"Dan Piepenbring\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fde7ced443ba5b52db3b06239dca8a2eaeff111fccecd7bf483663c99d2762b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fde7ced443ba5b52db3b06239dca8a2eaeff111fccecd7bf483663c99d2762b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dan Piepenbring\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/dpiepenbring\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Security Guard by Dan Piepenbring","description":"November 12, 2014 \u2013 Duane Hanson\u2019s Security Guard is on display at Gagosian Gallery\u2019s Park and Seventy-fifth Street location through December 3. Hanson, who died in 1996, is","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Security Guard by Dan Piepenbring","og_description":"November 12, 2014 \u2013 Duane Hanson\u2019s Security Guard is on display at Gagosian Gallery\u2019s Park and Seventy-fifth Street location through December 3. Hanson, who died in 1996, is","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2014-11-13T00:27:13+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-11-13T15:37:56+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1220,"height":1850,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/hanso-1990.0002.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Dan Piepenbring","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dan Piepenbring","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/"},"author":{"name":"Dan Piepenbring","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8"},"headline":"Security Guard","datePublished":"2014-11-13T00:27:13+00:00","dateModified":"2014-11-13T15:37:56+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/"},"wordCount":522,"commentCount":8,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/hanso-1990.0002.jpg","keywords":["art","Duane Hanson","Gagosian Gallery","loneliness","Madame Tussaud\u2019s","mimesis","openings","sculptures","Security Guard"],"articleSection":["Look"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/","name":"Security Guard by Dan Piepenbring","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/hanso-1990.0002.jpg","datePublished":"2014-11-13T00:27:13+00:00","dateModified":"2014-11-13T15:37:56+00:00","description":"November 12, 2014 \u2013 Duane Hanson\u2019s Security Guard is on display at Gagosian Gallery\u2019s Park and Seventy-fifth Street location through December 3. Hanson, who died in 1996, is","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/hanso-1990.0002.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/hanso-1990.0002.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/12\/security-guard\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Security Guard"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8","name":"Dan Piepenbring","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fde7ced443ba5b52db3b06239dca8a2eaeff111fccecd7bf483663c99d2762b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fde7ced443ba5b52db3b06239dca8a2eaeff111fccecd7bf483663c99d2762b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Dan Piepenbring"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/dpiepenbring\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79490"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79521,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79490\/revisions\/79521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}