Hans Haacke (born August 12, 1936) is a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

-born

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

ist who lives and works in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. Haacke is considered a "leading exponent" of Institutional Critique.

Early life

Haacke was born in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. He studied at the '' Staatliche Werkakademie'' in Kassel,

, from 1956 to 1960. In 1959, Haacke was hired to assist with the second documenta, working as a guard and tour guide. He was a student of Stanley William Hayter, a well-known and influential English printmaker, draftsman, and painter. From 1961 to 1962, he studied on a Fulbright grant at the

Tyler School of Art The Tyler School of Art and Architecture is based at Temple University, a large, urban, public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Tyler currently enrolls about 1,350 undergraduate students and about 200 graduate students in a wid ...

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then calle ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

. From 1967 to 2002, Haacke was a professor at the Cooper Union in

. During his formative years in Germany, he was a member of Zero (an international group of artists, active ca. 1957–1966).Haacke, Hans. ''Framing and Being Framed''. Halifax: Press of Nova scotia College of Art and Design, 1975. This group was held together with common motivations: the longing to re-harmonize man and nature and to restore art's metaphysical dimension. They sought to organize the pictorial surface without using traditional devices. Although their methods differed greatly, most of the work was monochromatic, geometric, kinetic, and gestural. But most of all they used nontraditional materials such as industrial materials, fire and water, light, and kinetic effects. The influence of the Zero group and the materials they used is clear in Haacke's early work from his paintings that allude to movement and expression to his early installations that are formally minimal and use earthly elements as materials. These early installations focused on systems and processes. ''Condensation Cube'' (1963–65) embodies a physical occurrence, of the condensation cycle, in real time. Some of the themes in these works from the 1960s include the interactions of physical and biological systems, living animals, plants, and the states of water and the wind. He also made forays into land art, but by the end of the 1960s, his art had found a more specific focus.

Systems work (1970–present)

Haacke's interest in real-time systems propelled him into his criticism of social and political systems.Tate Collectio
"Hans Haacke"
Accessed October 14, 2010. In most of his work after the late 1960s, Haacke focused on the

art world The art world comprises everyone involved in producing, commissioning, presenting, preserving, promoting, chronicling, criticizing, buying and selling fine art. It is recognized that there are many art worlds, defined either by location or alte ...

and the system of exchange between museums and corporations and corporate leaders; he often underlines its effects in site-specific ways. Haacke has been outspoken throughout his career about demystifying the relationship between museums and businesses and their individual practices. He writes, "what we have here is a real exchange of capital:

financial capital Financial capital (also simply known as capital or equity in finance, accounting and economics) is any economic resource measured in terms of money used by entrepreneurs and businesses to buy what they need to make their products or to provi ...

on the part of the sponsors and symbolic capital on the part of the sponsored".Bourdieu, P. and H. Haacke. ''Free Exchange''. Stanford: Stanford Univ Press, 1995. pg17. Using this concept from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Haacke has underlined the idea that corporate sponsorship of art enhances the sponsoring corporations' public reputation, which is of material use to them. Haacke believes, moreover, that both parties are aware of this exchange, and as an artist, Haacke is intent on making this relationship clear to viewers. In 1970, Hans Haacke proposed a work for the exhibition entitled ''Information'' to be held at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in New York (an exhibition meant to be an overview of current younger artists), according to which the visitors would be asked to vote on a current socio-political issue. The proposal was accepted, and Haacke prepared his installation, entitled ''MoMA Poll'', but did not hand in the specific question until right before the opening of the show. His query asked, "Would the fact that Governor Rockefeller has not denounced President Nixon's Indochina Policy be a reason for your not voting for him in November?" Visitors were asked to deposit their answers in the appropriate one of two transparent

Plexiglas Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite ...

ballot boxes. At the end of the exhibition, there were approximately twice as many Yes ballots as No ballots. Haacke's question commented directly on the involvements of a major donor and board member at MOMA, Nelson Rockefeller. This installation is an early example of what in the art world came to be known as institutional critique. ''MoMA Poll'' was cited in 2019 by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' as one of the works of art that defined the contemporary age. In one of his best-known works, which quickly became an art historical landmark, ''Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971,'' Haacke took on the real-estate holdings of one of New York City's biggest slum landlords. The work exposed, through meticulous documentation and photographs, the questionable transactions of Harry Shapolsky's real-estate business between 1951 and 1971. Haacke's solo show at the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

, which was to include this work and which made an issue of the business and personal connections of the museum's trustees, was cancelled on the grounds of artistic impropriety by the museum's director six weeks before the opening. (Shapolsky was not such a trustee, although some have misunderstood the affair by assuming that he was.) Curator Edward Fry was consequently fired for his support of the work. Following the abrupt cancellation of his exhibition and the trouble it had caused with the museum, Haacke turned to other galleries, to Europe and his native country, where his work was more often accepted. Ten years later he included the Shapolsky work—by then widely known—at his solo exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, entitled "Hans Haacke: Unfinished Business".Michael Brenson. "Art: In political Tone, Works by Hans Haacke." ''The New York Times'', December 19, 1986. At the John Weber gallery in New York, in 1972, on two separate occasions, Haacke created a

sociological Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...

study, collecting data from gallery visitors. He requested the visitors fill out a questionnaire with 20 questions ranging from their personal demographic background information to opinions on social and political issues. The results of the questionnaires were translated into pie charts and bar graphs that were presented in the gallery at a later date. They revealed, among other things, that most visitors were related in some way to the professions of art, art teaching, and museology, and most were politically

liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

. In 1974, Haacke submitted another proposal that was subsequently rejected for an exhibition at the

Wallraf–Richartz Museum The Wallraf–Richartz Museum (full name in German: ') is one of the three major museums in Cologne, Germany. It houses an art gallery with a collection of fine art from the medieval period to the early twentieth century. History The museum ...

. The work described a well-documented history of the ownership (with individual biographies of each of the owners) of

Manet A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...

's painting ''Bunch of Asparagus'' in the museum's collection, narrating how it came into the collection, and in which the

Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

activities of its donor were revealed. Instead, the work was exhibited in the Paul Menz Gallery in Cologne with a color reproduction in place of the original. In 1975, Haacke created a similar piece to the Manet project at the John Weber gallery in New York, exposing the history of ownership of

Seurat Georges Pierre Seurat ( , , ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough su ...

's '' Models'' (''Les Poseuses'') (small version). In the same manner as the previous installation, this work showed the increase of the value of the work as it passed from one patron to another. Also In 1975, he created one of his most memorable installations, entitled ''On Social Grease''. The work, which takes its title from a speech by a corporate head of one of the world's major oil companies, is made up of carefully fractured plaques exhibiting quotes from business executives and important art world figures. These plaques display their opinions on the system of exchange between museums and businesses, speaking directly to the importance of the arts in business practices. In 1978, Haacke had a solo exhibition at the

in Oxford, England, that included the new work ''A Breed Apart'', which made explicit criticism of the state-owned

British Leyland British Leyland was an automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It was partl ...

for exporting vehicles for police and military use to

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

South Africa. His 1979 solo exhibition at Chicago's Renaissance Society featured paintings that reproduced and altered print ads for Mobil,

Allied Chemical Allied Corp. was a major American company with operations in the chemical, aerospace, automotive, oil and gas industries. It was initially formed in 1920 as the Allied Chemical and Dye Corporation as an amalgamation of five chemical companies. In ...

, and Tiffany & Co.

1980s

With extensive research Haacke continued throughout the 1980s to target corporations and museums in his work through larger scale installations and paintings. In 1982, at the documenta 7 exhibition, Haacke exhibited a very large work that included oil portraits of Ronald Reagan and

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

in 19th-century style, facing on the opposite wall a gigantic photograph of the demonstration against nuclear arms held earlier that year—the largest demonstration in Germany since the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. The clear implication, supported by Haacke's remarks, was that these two figures were attempting to roll back their respective nations to the socially and politically regressive, laissez-faire, and imperialist policies of the 19th century. In 1988 he was given an exhibition at the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

in London at which he exhibited the portrait of Margaret Thatcher, full of iconographic references featuring cameos of

Maurice Maurice may refer to: People * Saint Maurice (died 287), Roman legionary and Christian martyr * Maurice (emperor) or Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus (539–602), Byzantine emperor *Maurice (bishop of London) (died 1107), Lord Chancellor and ...

and Charles Saatchi.C4 Contemporary Art
"Profile: Hans Haacke"
Accessed October 14, 2010. The Saatchis were well known not only as art collectors on an aggressive scale, widely affecting the course of the art world by their choices, but also as the managers of Thatcher's successful, fear-based political campaigns as well as that of the South African premier,

P. W. Botha Pieter Willem Botha, (; 12 January 1916 – 31 October 2006), commonly known as P. W. and af, Die Groot Krokodil (The Big Crocodile), was a South African politician. He served as the last prime minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984 and ...

1990s

Haacke's controversial 1990 painting ''Cowboy with Cigarette'' turned Picasso's ''Man with a Hat'' (1912–13) into a cigarette advertisement. The work was a reaction to the Phillip Morris company's sponsorship of a 1989–90 exhibition about Cubism at the Museum of Modern Art. Haacke has had solo exhibitions since, at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the

Van Abbemuseum The Van Abbemuseum () is a museum of modern and contemporary art in central Eindhoven, Netherlands, on the east bank of the Dommel River. Established in 1936, the museum is named after its founder, Henri van Abbe, who loved modern art and wante ...

, Eindhoven; and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. In 1993, Haacke shared, with

Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super h ...

, the Golden Lion for the German Pavilion at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. Haacke's installation ''Germania'' made explicit reference to the pavilion's roots in the politics of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. Haacke tore up the floor of the German pavilion as Hitler once had done. In 1993, looking through the doors of the pavilion, past the broken floor, the viewer witnesses the word on the wall: "Germania", Hitler's name for Nazi Berlin.''The Village Voice''
"The Art Libel"
Online article by Richard Goldstein. March 14, 2000. Accessed October 14, 2010. Hans Haacke - Blue Sail 1 9999999 (167482977)

Hans Haacke - Blue Sail 1 9999999 (167482977)

2000s

At the 2000,

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...

, at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

in New York, Haacke presented a piece that is a direct reaction to art censorship. The piece called ''Sanitation'' featured six anti-art quotes from US political figures on each side of mounted American flags. The quotes were in a

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

style script typeface once favored by Hitler's

. On the floor was an excerpt of the

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...

of the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of speech and expression. Lined up against the wall were a dozen garbage cans with speakers emitting military marching sounds.''Slate'' magazine
"Hans Haacke: Art or Punditry?"
Online article by Judith Shulevitz. March 16, 2000. Accessed January 25, 2020. Haacke notes that "freedom of expression is the focus of the work".

Commissions

In 2000, the permanent installation '' DER BEVÖLKERUNG'' (''To the Population'') was inaugurated in the Reichstag, the German Parliament building in Berlin, and in 2006, a public commission commemorating Rosa Luxemburg was completed in a three-block area in the center of the city. In 2014, it was announced that Haacke would be installing one of his works as part of the annual Fourth Plinth commission in 2015. His winning commission of a bronze sculpture of a horse’s skeleton, titled ''Gift Horse'', comes with an electronic ribbon tied to its front leg that displays a live ticker of prices on the London Stock Exchange.

Use of Law

Along with Adrian Piper and Michael Asher, Haacke uses a version of Seth Siegelaub and Robert Projansky's 1971 artist contract, The Artists Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement, in order to control the dissemination, display and ownership of his art works.

Writing and publications

On being considered a political artist Haacke says: "it is uncomfortable for me to be a politicized artist.... the work of an artist with such a label is in danger of being understood one dimensionally without exception.... all artwork have a political component whether its intended or not".ARTFORUM
"Germany Downsizes Culture; Hans Haacke Talks Politics ; More
Accessed October 14, 2010. Jack Burnham comments on Haacke's political growth and links its roots to exposure to a time of political unrest in the US surrounding the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

. Burnham also points to Haacke's joining the Arts Workers Coalition and the boycott of the

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...

Bienal in Brazil in 1969 as catalyst for the artist's work to take a political direction. Writing by Haacke and his close friends and colleagues, including documentation of his work, are collected in two separate books by the artist. Hans Haacke first published a book about the ideas and processes behind his and other conceptual art called ''Framing and Being Framed''. Published in 1995, ''Free Exchange'', is a transcription of a conversation between Haacke and

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence ...

. The two men met in the 1980s and, as Bourdieu states in the introduction, "very quickly discovered how much they have in common".

Notable works in public collections

*''Condensation Cube'' (1963),

Generali Foundation The Generali Foundation was established in 1988 by the Generali Group Austria as a private and non-profit-making art association for the promotion of contemporary art. Situated in Vienna, Austria, it is one of the important museums specialised in ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

(on permanent loan to

Museum der Moderne Salzburg The Museum der Moderne Salzburg has two buildings at two different locations in Salzburg, Austria. The Rupertinum in the old town for new artistic concepts opened in 1983 and the Museum on the Mönchsberg for modern art in a contemporary setting op ...

);

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was desig ...

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

; and

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

*''Blue Sail'' (1964-1965),

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and wa ...

*''Condensation Wall'' (1963/1966), National Gallery of Art,

*''Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real-Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971'' (1971),

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

and

, New York *''Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real-Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971'' (1971),

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York and

*''Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Board of Trustees'' (1974),

, New York *''A Breed Apart'' (1978),

*''Thank You, Paine Webber'' (1979),

, New York *''Oil Painting: Homage to Marcel Broodthaers'' (1982),

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 19 ...

*''MetroMobiltan'' (1985),

*''The Saatchi Collection (Simulations)'' (1987),

The Broad The Broad () is a contemporary art museum on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles. The museum is named for philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, who financed the $140 million building that houses the Broad art collections. It offers free gener ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

*''Mission Accomplished'' (2004-2005), National Gallery of Art,

*''News'' (1969/2008),

References

External links

Hans Haacke
on New Museum archive

]
"Hans Haaacke: Talking Art"
Tate Channel

at Artnet.com * MoMa.org Audio Program,
''All Systems Go: Recovering Hans Haacke's Systems Art''
by Luke Skrebowski, Middlesex University, England, MP3 file (30 min/28MB).
ZERO foundation
* :de:ZERO, ZERO group
"Hans Haacke. ’Obra Social’"
Hans Haacke's exhibition in Fundació Antoni Tàpies. 21/6/1995 - 3/9/1995 {{DEFAULTSORT:Haacke, Hans 1936 births Living people German conceptual artists German installation artists Institutional Critique artists Censorship in the arts Temple University Tyler School of Art alumni Political artists German contemporary artists Art controversies Cooper Union faculty