Whitney Biennial 2019
May 17–Oct 27, 2019
Curran Hatleberg
32
Floor 3
Born 1982 in Washington, DC
Lives in Baltimore, MD
Curran Hatleberg’s photographs are products of his extensive travels around the United States. Following his intuition, he records his observations of America’s landscapes, towns, and people, fusing the traditions of documentary photography and portraiture. In each new place he spends time getting to know its people—sometimes briefly, sometimes for months at a time. The portraits result from these relationships, and those depicted are actively involved in his representation of them. In the resulting images seemingly quotidian scenes take on surreal qualities as he locates the inexplicable details within the everyday. Although Hatleberg’s photographs are recognizable as America, there is a dreamlike ambiguity about the exact settings or narratives, preventing us from reducing these moments to offhand assumptions and leaving us open to the subjects’ lives. The artist aims to use photography to undermine bias and forge understanding across difference and distance.
Untitled (Camaro), 2017
Curran Hatleberg, Untitled (Camaro), 2017. Inkjet print, 19 × 23 1/2 in. (48.3 × 59.7 cm). Image courtesy the artist and Higher Pictures, New York
-
0:00
Curran Hatleberg
0:00
Curran Hatleberg: Chance is the methodology of my whole practice.
Narrator: Curran Hatleberg discusses the photographs on view.
Curran Hatleberg: When I set out, I don't really know where I'm going in the sense that I just get in the car and drive, and I'm following intuition, rather than intention. So I drive around, which feels endless at times, just waiting to meet somebody who's going to be open to a connection.
Often the person that I find, a kind of curiosity that I have for them is met in kind and we sort of develop a trust and relationship from that point.
I think the best way to override these biases that we all carry around with us is through direct interaction and exchange with somebody. Ultimately I think photographs of people sort of force this interest in lives other than our own, and when this works, we feel ourselves reflected in somebody else, and thereby remove some kind of indifference that we have about them. But really it's only through others that I think we'll understand ourselves, our country, and our current moment.