Hans Haacke
Thursday, 7 March 2013
Work from his oeuvre.
“One of Haacke’s urgent concerns is the expanding relationship between corporations and museums. Another is the business ventures of major collectors and patrons in countries like South Africa. In the 1985 ”Buhrlesque,” his and hers shoes, each with a candle pointed upward out of the heel like an antiaircraft gun, sit on an altarlike table. Hanging on the wall behind the table, like a devotional image in a cheap motel, is a cover of Paratus, the periodical of the South African Defense Force. The person who inspired the work is Dietrich Buhrle, whom Haacke describes as a prominent Swiss art collector, a supporter of the Kunsthaus in Zurich and the chairman and chief executive officer of a company that makes shoes and arms that supply the South African Government. ” – New York Times (1986)