Curran Hatleberg

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."[7] 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."[8] 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."[9]

Hatleberg's work was recently 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."[12] PBS Newshour reported "In a deeply divided America, the artists chosen by curators Panetta and Hockley exhibit a quieter tone than in the past. " [13] Hatleberg's work was exhibited on the third floor.

Hatleberg is a recipient of the 2015 Magnum Emergency Fund,[14] the 2014 Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer's Fellowship Grant, and the Richard Benson Prize for Excellence in Photography.[15]

In 2015, TBW Books published Hatleberg's first monograph, Lost Coast. Throughout the series, "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."[16] Hatleberg spoke of the project and explained that "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?" [5]

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. [17]

Hatleberg's work has been published by The New Yorker,[1] The New York Times Magazine,[18] Vice,[19] The Paris Review,[20] and Mossless Magazine.