The following page is dedicated to available information found on the following artist by students of the Environmental Art class at Ball State. The information is as accurate as can be given available resources. Any additions should be sent to the address below.
Hans Haacke
What are his intentions?
- Works largely with sociopolitical concerns.
- Interaction between natural and human systems.
- To convey the simplest observations of the world around us.
- The obligation to see was passed on to the spectator.
- Leonardo da Vinci - grasping constant change and effect.
- Natural events - wind, rain, gravity.
What/who influences and inspires him?
- He worked on the interaction between natural and human systems...then finding out that things to stay natural for to long. Therefore, his interests moved in the direction of "actively researching the political and economic motive of those in power."
- 1960-61 stay in Paris - influenced by Takis and Yves Klein
- Artists who "dared to think and engage in nonrenumerative projects, works that because of their transitory nature had no sale value but, nevertheless, represented the realization of ambitious dreams in the round".
What materials does he use?
- Natural mediums mostly for relationship purposes.
- Refuses to use screws, steel braces or gaskets.
Personal history.
- Born in 1936...grew up in Cologne, West Germany.
- Master's degree in fine arts from the Staatliche Hochscule fur Bildende Hunste in Kassel.
- 1960 moved to Paris to study.
- 1961 moved to the U.S. - Temple University - Fulbright grant.
- 1963 - water constructions first appeared; moved back to Cologne.
- Studio consisted of results of WWII bombing raids cavernous central room
- 1965 - went to New York, January show at the Howard Wise Gallery.
Related studies.
- Early studies in painting and graphics.
- 1960, Paris, studied with English printmaker Stanley Hayter at the Atelier 17. -- Completed optical prints, paintings, and reliefs.
- Art and costume history at a girls' school of fashion.
Today.
- Lives in Manhattan and teaches in Philadelphia.
- Artwork is extremely romantic, and of course related very much so to nature.
...make something which experiences, reacts to its environment, changes, is nonstable...
...make something indeterminate, that always looks different, the shape of which cannot be predicted precisely...
...make something that cannot "perform" without the assistance of its environment...
...make something sensitive to light and temperature changes, that is subject to air currents and depends, in its functioning, on the forces of gravity...
make something the spectator handles, an object to be played with and thus animated...
...make something that lives in time and makes the "spectator" experience time...
...articulate something natural...
Hans Haacke
Cologne, January 1965
This information was compiled by Krissy Butterly (2-14-97).
Other Links...
Back to Main Page.