Located in Lambertville, NJ
A unique patinated bronze sculpture in the form of a 1940's leather bomber jacket hanging on a wall mounted coat rack. The 1940's bomber jacket. It is one of the few items that has really transcended both fashion and trends. People are wearing these jackets today in the same way they have for the last six decades. It's a symbol of freedom, of the rebel in us, or a certain kind of social stigma, a certain attitude.
Hanson chooses to isolate and immortalize a man's leather jacket. The choice becomes a comment on the power in our culture of image per se. A comment on the ascendance of personal style and image, via our possessions and fashion, to a consuming culture value. Seemingly casually tossed over a hook, yet frozen there in bronze, the jacket evokes an entire range of masculine stereotypes celebrated by the media-cowboys, mavericks and rebels of our time. The open road, macho bravado, rugged individuality, sex appeal. Yet the presence of this lone jacket equally evokes the very personal, if anonymous, history of its wearer. Like the cast-form-life sculpture of George Segal, it expresses mystery, even poignancy, of its owners absence. As in much of Hanson's art, this culture manages both to critique and also to value such material icons of our culture.
Scott Hanson...
Category
Late 20th Century North American Modern Virginia Scotchie Sculptures