Curran Hatleberg

Curran Hatleberg
Born	Curran Hatleberg 1982 Washington D.C.
Nationality	American
Education	Yale University, MFA Photography
Known for	Photography
Awards	2015 Magnum Emergency Fund Grant, 2014 Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer's Fellowship Grant, 2010 Richard Benson Prize for Excellence in Photography
Website	curranhatleberg.com

Curran Hatleberg is an American photographer.^[1] He attended Yale University and graduated in 2010 with an MFA.^[2] Influenced by the American tradition of road photography,^[3] Hatleberg's process entails driving throughout the United States and interacting with various strangers in different locales. His work was included in the Whitney Biennial 2019.^[4]

Work

While speaking about his practice Hatleberg explained,^[5]

I feel a specific devotion to the unknown. It's a kind of worship. When I stumble into the right person and place and feeling, I want to go all the way in and let it wash over me. In those rare moments, the world is so overwhelmingly generous; everything feels imbued with reverence and wonder.

Driving is an integral element to how Hatleberg creates his work and he frequently discusses this when asked about his photographic practice,^[6]

When I was a child, the only way my parents could get me to fall asleep was to put me in the car and drive around the block. Maybe it was the sound of tires on cement, or the rush of the wind pouring in that sedated me. Perhaps this is an origin story, why my work is still so much about driving.

In a published conversation with fellow photographer Matthew Genitempo, Hatleberg noted that^[5]

Chance and accident are the foundation of my entire practice. I start out with a vague notion, aiming towards a region I'm interested in, then wait until something feels right. It's purely visceral. I like driving long distances, looking around, making it up as I go. It's a loose approach that favors intuitive thinking over analytical design. Then, when I finally find a place, there's no mistaking it; there's an undeniable atmospheric weight. I can feel it come over me. A place that's a sure thing will almost feel like a stage.

According to Hatleberg, his photographs are intended to function as "a fiction that is more real than reality."^[6] Hatleberg's roadtrips are lengthy and his editing process doesn't occur until later on - "I don't look over anything until I've shot hundreds of rolls."^[6]

During an interview with the Birmingham Museum of Art Hatleberg articulated that he identifies most with "an American tradition of photography—from Walker Evans to William Eggleston. They are my heroes, but it's undoubtedly a different time. I think it's essential to take from tradition without being bound to it—to author one's own time."^[3] In 2015, Jordan Teicher wrote in Photograph,"Hatleberg's photos succeed as social documentary, but to see them only that way ignores their freewheeling poetry, and their lack of any sort of useable, concrete information."^[7] Hatleberg has also discussed fiction writing as an influence on his work, "After reading, everyone you pass on the street becomes fascinating or mysterious; the scenery shifts and everything seems infused with potent meaning."^[8]

In 2015, TBW Books published Hatleberg's first monograph, Lost Coast. Throughout the series,^[9]

Hatleberg presents an episodic narrative about Eureka, California. Intimate portraits of town and people function like a collection of short stories, building to an understanding of place. The pictures live between extremes, between the grand and the granular, between the breathtaking natural landscape and the grim realities of industrial decline.

Hatleberg spoke of the project and explained that^[5]

when making Lost Coast, I attempted to make pictures that communicated more what my own personal experience of that place felt like, not what the place is really like. For me, the work is more like a dream I had about a real place than a depiction of reality. There's this incredible hubris in to trying to portray a place or a person. How can a photographer ever possibly represent a unique region, lifestyle, or person within a few pictures?

In 2022, TBW Books published Hatleberg's second monograph, River's Dream. The work was shot between 2010 and 2020 in the American South. With 65 pictures, "Hatleberg centers his narrative on the dog days of summer. Sweltering heat, dripping humidity, lush vegetation, and screaming insects". The book includes essays by Natasha Trethewey and Joy Williams. ^[10]

Teaching appointments

Hatleberg has taught photography at Yale University, Cooper Union, and the International Center of Photography.^[11]

Exhibitions

• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, June 2015 – August 2015, Fraenkel Gallery. San Francisco, CA^[12]
• Curran Hatleberg, May – June 2016. Higher Pictures, New York, NY^[7]
• The Half-Life of Love, May 2017 – March 2018, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA^[13]

Whitney Biennial 2019

Hatleberg's work was featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. The curatorial statement by Rujeko Hockley and Jane Panetta details, "Much of the art that we selected for the 2019 Biennial was steeped in socio-political concerns - an engagement important to us as curators - while at the same time remaining open ended and hopeful."^[14] PBS Newshour reported "In a deeply divided America, the artists chosen by curators Panetta and Hockley exhibit a quieter tone than in the past. " ^[15]

Publications

• Lost Coast (TBW, 2015)^[16]
• Somewhere Someone. Hassla, 2017. With Cynthia Daignault. ISBN 978-1-940881-21-8. Edition of 500 copies.
• Double Rainbow. Self-published, 2021. Edition of 200 copies.
• River's Dream (TBW, 2022)

Awards

• 2014: Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer's Fellowship Grant
• 2015: Magnum Emergency Fund^[17]
• Richard Benson Prize for Excellence in Photography^[18]

References

1. Jacobs, Gideon (27 March 2016). "Florida's Shadow Country". The New Yorker. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
2. "School of Art alumni and faculty members selected for 2019 Whitney Biennial in NYC". Yale University. 4 March 2019. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
3. "Interview with Photographer Curran Hatleberg". Birmingham Museum of Art. 3 November 2014.
4. "2019 Whitney Biennial Announces Participating Artists". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2020-04-13.
5. Brooks, Ashley (2018-09-24). "Traveling Through the Dark | Houston Center for Photography". hcponline.org. Retrieved 2020-04-11.
6. Wolf, Sasha (2019). Photo Work : Forty Photographers on Process and Practice. Aperture Foundation.
7. "Curran Hatleberg, Higher Pictures". Photograph Magazine. 2016-05-27. Retrieved 2020-04-11.
8. Rand, Bryson (2013-10-04). "Curran Hatleberg's Intimate Photos of Strangers Met on Road Trips Across America". Feature Shoot. Retrieved 2020-04-11.
9. "Lost Coast - Sold Out". TBWBooks. Retrieved 2020-04-11.
10. "River's Dream - First Priting - Red". TBWBooks. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
11. Pinka, Amya (12 March 2015). "A Journey Of Photographs – The New Paltz Oracle". Retrieved 2020-04-13.
12. "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: Curated by Katy Grannan". Fraenkel Gallery. Retrieved 2020-04-11.
13. "The Half-Life of Love". MASS MoCA. 21 March 2017. Retrieved 2020-04-11.
14. Panetta, Jane, Rujeko Hockley, and Ramsay Kolber (2019). Whitney Biennial 2019. Whitney Museum of American Art.
15. "What this year's Whitney Biennial says about contemporary American art". PBS NewsHour. 2019-06-28. Retrieved 2020-04-13.
16. "Staff Picks: Tests, Tongues, Tinfoil Orbs". The Paris Review. 2016-12-09. Retrieved 2020-04-11.
17. Bicker, Phil. "Time Exclusive: Magnum Emergency Fund Announces 2015 Grantees". TIME.
18. "Curran Hatleberg". Fraenkel Gallery. Retrieved 2020-04-11.