Hans Haacke's singular distinction is of the hard won, genuine kind, an eminent isolation shared in the twentieth century perhaps only by John Heartfield and Piero Manzoni (two figures of greatest importance for his own formation). Since the late 1960s, he diagnosed contexts of culture that nobody had seen (e.g., the necessary politics of ecology), and was the single voice in analyzing the economies of corporate culture nobody wanted to see. Equally blocked from American institutional recognition as he was isolated from art historical contexts (neither accepted as Minimalist nor as Conceptual artist), Haacke is now all the more distinguished by the impact his works and his writings have had on two generations of artists who have followed his models of critical analysis and cultural contestation, ranging from Martha Rosler to Allan Sekula, from Louise Lawler to Mark Lombardi, from Walid Raad to Hito Steyerl.
Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Modern Art, Harvard University; author of Neo-Avantgarde and Culture Industry and Formalism and Historicity
Haacke is undoubtedly an essential figure in the art of the last half century. For him, artistic practice, politics, and the institution are inextricably linked, and cannot be understood in isolation from each other. He has been among the artists who have reflected most penetratingly on the artist's conditions of production. This book, an exhaustive compilation of his writings, provides a unique insight into his work, and so illuminates our era.
Manuel Borja-Villel, Director, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
With this book, we now have a full collection of Haacke's crucial statements, allowing the span of his career from systems art to institutional critique to be fully assessed. As pithy as they are indispensable, Haacke's writings capture the fierce ethics that he has always brought to his practice—now summarized in a useful introduction by Alex Alberro.
Caroline A. Jones, Professor and Director, History Theory Criticism Section, MIT Architecture Department; curator and author of Hans Haacke 1967
This comprehensive collection of Haacke's trenchant writings demonstrates the full breadth of his concerns–from postformalism to urbanism, ecology to labor relations–as well as the full range of theoretical positions he has drawn on to articulate them, from systems theory to sociology. It also features a number of important, previously unpublished texts, including an early critique of kinetic art and a recent one of speculative property development. An indispensable resource as well as a testament to Haacke's long, politically committed career.
Luke Skrebowski, Lecturer in Contemporary Art, Department of History of Art, University of Manchester
I have often asked myself, What would Hans Haacke do? For over half a century, Haacke has served as the artistic, ethical, and political compass of the art field. This long-overdue collection of his writings will serve as an indispensible guide for artists, curators, critics and historians for generations to come.
Andrea Fraser, performance artist; Professor of New Genres in the Department of Art, University of California, Los Angeles; author of Museum Highlights
Indispensable.
The New York Times
