Hans Haacke

Hans Haacke (b. 1936) is a German-American conceptual artist whose practice has addressed the political economy of art — the systems of power, money, and affiliation within which art circulates. From early works treating biological systems as models for social analysis, he developed institutional critique, documenting corporate ties, trustee affiliations, and real estate holdings in the formal language of informational display. His 1971 Guggenheim exhibition was cancelled after the museum's director objected to a work documenting a Manhattan slumlord's holdings — an act of censorship that cost the curator his job and became a landmark in the history of art and institutional power.