New Museum

The New Museum presents a major retrospective of the work of Hans Haacke (b. 1936, Cologne, Germany), the first major American museum exhibition to survey Haacke’s work in over thirty years.

For six decades, Haacke has been a pioneer in kinetic art, environmental art, Conceptual art, and institutional critique. This retrospective brings together more than thirty works from across the artist’s career, focusing in particular on the way he expanded the parameters of his practice to encompass the social, political, and economic structures in which art is produced, circulated, and displayed. The exhibition includes a number of Haacke’s rarely seen kinetic works, environmental sculptures, and visitor polls of the late 1960s and early ’70s, all of which were central to discussions around systems aesthetics in art during that period; works from the 1970s and ’80s addressing the corporate sponsorship of major art institutions and political interference; and more recent works considering the intersection of global capitalism, nationalism, and humanitarian crises around the world. The exhibition also serves as the New York premiere of Haacke’s sculpture Gift Horse (2014), a bronze sculpture of a horse’s skeleton adorned with an LED ribbon streaming stock prices in real time, which the artist originally created for London’s Fourth Plinth program. This long-overdue assessment of his work highlights its formal and critical complexity and the remarkable consistency with which he has approached the relationship between art and society.

This exhibition is curated by Gary Carrion-Murayari, Kraus Family Curator, and Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue copublished by the New Museum and Phaidon Press.

Hans Haacke was born in Cologne, Germany, in 1936, and has lived and worked in New York since 1965. He has had solo exhibitions at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2012); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA (2011, 1967); X Initiative, New York (2009); Generali Foundation, Vienna (2001); Serpentine Gallery, London (2001); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (1996); Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (1995); Centre Pompidou, Paris (1989); Tate London (1984); Renaissance Society, Chicago (1979); Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (1979); Modern Art Oxford, UK (1978); and Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (1976), among others. His last major American survey exhibition took place at the New Museum in 1986. He has participated in international exhibitions including documenta, Kassel (2017, 1997, 1987, 1982, 1972); Lyon Biennial (2017); Venice Biennale (2015, 2009, 1993, 1976); Liverpool Biennial (2014); Mercosul Biennial (2013); Sharjah Biennial (2011); Gwangju Biennale (2008); Whitney Biennial, New York (2000); Skulptur Projekte Münster (1997, 1987); Johannesburg Biennial (1997); Sydney Biennial (1990, 1984); São Paulo Biennial (1985); and Tokyo Biennial (1970). He won the prestigious Golden Lion (shared with Nam June Paik) at the Venice Biennale in 1993.