Critical texts that span almost fifty years, mapping Haacke's progression from engagement with biological systems to interrogation of the social and economic underpinnings of art.
For five decades, the artist Hans Haacke (b. 1936) has created works that explore the social, political, and economic underpinnings of the production of art. His works make plain the hidden and not-so-hidden agendas of those―from Cartier to David Koch―who support art in the service of industry; they expose such inconvenient social and economic truths as the real estate holdings of Manhattan slumlords, and the attempts to whitewash support for the Nazi regime, apartheid, or the war on terror through museum donations. 
This book gathers interviews, difficult-to-find essays, cornerstones of institutional critique, and new critical approaches by writers that include Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Jack Burnham, Rosalyn Deutsche, and Leo Steinberg. Haacke's 1971 Guggenheim exhibition was famously canceled when the artist refused to withdraw several proposed works, including one exposing the business dealings of a Manhattan real estate company. This volume includes Edward Fry's catalog text for that show, as well as Walter Grasskamp's "An Unpublished Text for an Unpainted Picture," redacted from an exhibition catalog in 1984 because of statements about the German collector Peter Ludwig. Other essays consider such topics as Haacke's controversial commission for the Reichstag; the activation of the spectator, from Condensation Cube to the Polls; the conceptual continuity of his practice with regard to General Systems Theory; and his delayed and problematic reception in both the United States and Europe. With contemporary essays and scholarly reassessments, this collection serves as an essential guide to critical thinking on Haacke's artistic practice, from the works of the 1960s that engage with physical and biological systems to his later interrogations of the social and economic underpinnings of art.
Contributors Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Jack Burnham, Douglas Crimp, Rosalyn Deutsche, Sam Durant, Edward F. Fry, Walter Grasskamp, Rosalind Krauss, Jack McGrath, Luke Skrebowski, Leo Steinberg

Hans Haacke (October Files)

Arts & Photography

Bois, Yve-Alain

Burnham, Jack

Fry, Edward F

Grasskamp, Walter

History & Criticism

Mit Pr

Born in Cologne in 1936 and based in New York since 1965, Haacke's strong political, cultural and social concerns are reflected in his installations, texts and sculptures. Throughout his fifty-year career Haacke has frequently changed the presentation of his art to get his message across. Often borrowing from non-art sources such as corporate advertising, questionnaires or scientific experimentation, Haacke is probably the most successful and best-known late twentieth-century artist to create a political art that manages to hit its mark with succinct elegance. Haacke sometimes works almost as a sleuth-like reporter, uncovering museum politics in his art. exhibitions. For example, his 1971 one-person show at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, was cancelled in response to his proposal to present the questionable real estate dealings of several New York companies. Though he began as a painter in the late 1950s, Hans Haacke soon began to make works such as Raintower (1962) which drew on natural energies and forces. Subsequent works, for example the opinion-based MOMA-Poll (1970), encouraged active audience participation. The artist is particularly admired for his research into the art world's hidden economies and politics, as well as into repressed histories of places and people. Bevolkerung [To The Population, 1999]) have often drawn immense controversy. Haacke is a unique figure in post-war art, and his work has touched on such diverse movements as Conceptual, Pop, Minimal and Land art. His integrity as well as the formal innovations of his art have proven hugely influential for many generations of contemporary artists. Haacke has presented solo exhibitions in such museums as the Tate Gallery, London (1984); the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, and tour (1986); and the Musee nationale d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1989), among others. Haacke has participated in such landmark group exhibitions as 'When Attitudes Become Form', Kunsthalle Bern, and tour (1969), and 'Information' at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1970). He has been featured in four Documentas, Kassel (1972, 1982, 1987 and 1997), both 'Skulptur. Projekte in Munster' exhibitions (1987 and 1997), and three Venice Biennales (1976, 1978 and 1993).

Hans Haacke (Phaidon Contemporary Artists Series)

Bird, Jon

Nesbit, Molly

Phaidon Press

In 1954, the French writer, politician, and publisher André Malraux (1901–1976) posed at home for a photographer from the magazine Paris Match, surrounded by pages from his forthcoming book Le musée imaginaire de la sculpture mondiale. The enchanting metaphor of the musée imaginaire (imaginary museum) was built upon that illustrated art book, and Malraux was one of its greatest champions. Drawing on a range of contemporary publications, he adopted images and responded to ideas. Indeed, Malraux’s book on the floor is a variation of photographer André Vigneau’s spectacular Encyclopédie photographique de l’art, published in five volumes from 1935 on—years before Malraux would enter this field. Both authors were engaged in juxtaposing artworks via photographs and publishing these photographs by the hundreds, but Malraux was the better sloganeer. Starting from a close examination of the photograph of Malraux in his salon, art historian Walter Grasskamp takes the reader back to the dawn of this genre of illustrated art book. He shows how it catalyzed the practice of comparing works of art on a global scale. He retraces the metaphor to earlier reproduction practices and highlights its ubiquity in contemporary art, ending with an homage to the other pioneer of the “museum without walls,” the unjustly forgotten Vigneau.

The Book on the Floor: André Malraux and the Imaginary Museum

Getty Research Institute

Hans Haacke: Photographic Notes Documenta 2 1959 (Schriftenreihe des Museums für Gegenwartskunst Siegen)

Deutscher Kunstverlag (DKV)

This unique and surprising book presents 387 small-scale architectural models created by the late insurance clerk Peter Fritz. The models were discovered in a junk shop by artist Oliver Croy, and were subsequently exhibited, receiving much acclaim.

Sondermodelle/Special Models: The 387 houses of Peter Fritz, a Viennese insurance clerk

Reference

Spinnen, Burkhard

Fricke, Harald

Achleitner, Friedrich

Puvogel, Renate

Baumunk, Bodo-Michael

Zinganel, Michael

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Hatje Cantz Publishers

The artist Karin Kneffel became known in to the wider world in the 1990s with the creation of her distinctive, small-scale animal portraits. In the years that followed, Kneffel took on numerous themes, be it fruit, Roman frescoes spread out behind contemporary viewers, or the integration of Mies van der Rohe’s villas into a pictorial world of mirroring and reflections. This publication is dedicated to Kneffel’s works, and boasting dozens of full-color illustrations, it covers her wide thematic spectrum as an artist.

Karin Kneffel – Fallstudien: Arbeiten auf Papier (English and German Edition)

Individual Artists

Wienand Verlag

The Danner Prize was awarded for the sixth time in 1999. Once again, the work selected meets the highest aesthetic standards and is representative of the most recent trends in the decorative and applied arts. Many objects shown are far from the mainstream and the traditional; they are in fact functional works of art. 82 pieces in the fields of metal-working, jewelery, glass, wood, ceramics and textiles met the exacting standards of an international jury. These objects show that there need be no conflict between one-of-a-kind pieces and batch production, sculpture as art and fine functional craftsmanship and playfully evocative experiment and classically finished work.

Schoen und provokant / Beautiful and provocative. Danner-Preis '99 / Danner Award '99

Rýth, Herbert

Angerer, Martin

Lippemer, Rosemarie

Arnoldsche

•Richly illustrated and containing a wide range of historical documents, this is an in-depth history of the Haus der Kunst•Celebrates the 80th anniversary of the Haus Der KunstFor the Haus der Kunst in Munich, the question of how to deal with its own past arose directly after the end of the Second World War, when the building once again served as an exhibition space . This richly illustrated volume spans the key historical dates during which a social and political development took place, at whose beginning stood the ideology of the National Socialists and whose end marked the start of Germany's transformation into a democratic state. In this time period, it was not only the orientation of the Haus der Kunst's content that changed; as a result of the cultural-historical upheavals of this time, the basis for the building's development as an international exhibition venue was also laid. Today the Haus der Kunst plays a formative role in the discussion of relevant positions in contemporary art. It documents the historical developments within the context of political and cultural transformations, as well as their international parallels and references. Large exhibitions that were influential for the topography of the art of the twentieth century such as the World Exposition in Paris in 1937, the biennials in Venice, and the first documenta in 1955 provide the coordinates for the international dimension of the Haus der Kunst's story.

Histories in Conflict: The Haus Der Kunst And The Ideological Uses Of Art, 1937-1955

Wigley, Mark

Dercon, Chris

Wilmes, Ulrich

Okwui Enwezor

Buchloh, Benjamin H.D.

Brantl, Sabine

Bodenschatz, Harald

Sieveking

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