Curated by Massimiliano Gioni and Gary Carrion-Murayari
Hans Haacke’s 1986–87 New Museum exhibition, along with the exceptional catalogue that accompanied it, set the terms for our understanding of the artist’s searing critiques of corporate sponsorship, provenance, and the tangled networks of art, business, and politics. Now the pioneering Conceptualist returns to the institution with a long-overdue American retrospective. The show’s curators have gathered together more than thirty of his works, from the early wind-and-water sculptures—among them the famous Condensation Cube, 1963–67, as well as audience-manipulated pieces like Wave, 1964—to recent projects on global capitalism and nationalism, including the US debut of his outstanding commission for London’s Fourth Plinth, Gift Horse, 2014, which will make its US debut here. The selection underscores how systems theory has informed the artist’s work for six decades; at this moment of renewed activism and unionization, Haacke’s expansive practice, particularly his investigations into museums and money—pieces like On Social Grease, 1975, and MetroMobiltan, 1985, both on view here for a second time—will no doubt seem more urgent than ever.
