Hans Haacke: Retrospective

Hans Haacke (b. 1936) is a legend of political conceptual art—and his work remains strikingly relevant in today’s world. As a founding figure of artistic institutional critique, Haacke redefined the relationship between art and society and profoundly influenced generations of artists.

From the 1960s onwards, the German-American artist initially explored physical, biological, and ecological systems before shifting his focus to socio-political structures and subjecting them to a precise, often unsparing analysis. In doing so, he addresses abuses of power, mechanisms of exclusion and inequality, historico-political disruptions, the entanglements of public institutions, politics, and economics while also confronting anti-democratic tendencies.

Haacke always pays particular attention to his own field of action, to the implicit and explicit rules and framing conditions of the art world as well as the power dynamics and class relations at work within it. His works draw on sociological methods of observation and inquiry, data-based research, and principles of systemic thinking, but also make a point of involving their audience, making it an essential factor in his investigations.

Almost twenty years after Hans Haacke’s last retrospective in Europe and nearly twenty-five years after the only monographic exhibition of the artist’s work in Austria to date, Belvedere 21 presents a comprehensive exhibition of works from 1959 to today in cooperation with the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

The retrospective highlights the versatility of Haacke’s oeuvre. In addition to numerous iconic works, it places special emphasis on those projects that Haacke developed specifically for the Austrian context.

This exhibition is an invitation to rediscover Haacke’s art and its relevance to the pressing questions of our time: How do capital, ideology, and history shape our lives? What images, rhetoric, and manipulative tactics does nationalist populism employ? How about the complicity of the art world, but also the critical potential of art?

At a time when liberal values are under threat worldwide, Hans Haacke’s pioneering work and the critical potential inscribed within it proves to be more significant than ever. The retrospective at Belvedere 21 makes it accessible to a broad public and invites visitors to reflect, take a stance, and, not least, to defend the principles of a pluralist society.

The exhibition is being presented in cooperation with the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt and is accompanied by the publication Hans Haacke: Retrospective, published by Hirmer Verlag, Munich.

Curated by Luisa Ziaja.

Assistant Curators: Katarina Lozo and Theresa Dann-Freyenschlag

Press contact: presse@belvedere.at / T +43 1 79 557-185. View press materials here.