Hans Haacke’s State of the Union
Isabelle Dupuis
It was inevitable. Hans Haacke, the German-born New Yorker has been making a name for himself in the international waters of the art world by systematically–and thoroughly–chipping away the veneer of seduction and hype of our corporate-saturated world to reveal the deceit, hype and lies that hover not too far below the surface.
He has brandished his artistic pick ax and cracked the PR machinery of Western companies doing unsavory business in apartheid South Africa, unveiled how the mighty turn art into commodities to leverage their capital growth, and highlighted the failings of democratic societies around the world. Along the way, he has attracted a substantial amount of ire and censorship from the powers that be. Yet he has persisted for over 30 years, systematically, thoroughly and patiently.
Then 9/11 came about, and the world as we thought we knew it was no more. And so it was inevitable that Haacke, who frequently examines historical legacies, would eventually compose a body of works reflecting on the aftermath of that sunny and horrible September morning.
"State of the Union" is a monumental installation in a monumental space. The show fills the main space of Paula Cooper Gallery with a compilation of several works Haacke has made at various moments in time since the collapse of the Twin Towers: a proposal for the World Trade Center Memorial, a guerilla project done in collaboration with Creative Time and a series of pieces and C-prints that reveal much about Haacke’s feelings concerning this country’s current state of affairs.
The individual pieces of the show in the main gallery can easily be viewed as components of a single installation. A navy blue nylon banner, sewn with a set of stars that are unmistakably American, hangs from the ceiling of the vaulted main space. The massive dimensions of State of the Union–24 by 16 feet–dominate everything around. The fabric is sheered in a clean line down the middle, almost reaching its bottom edge. And so it hangs, a set of stars majestic and dignified on one side, heavy, limp and crumpled to the floor on the other. It exists in another spectrum than Blue Sail, Haacke’s other fabric-based piece, made 40 years ago–and which, incidentally, was also exhibited at the Paula Cooper Gallery. Blue Sail keeps a piece of pale blue cloth hovering in mid-air, simply held in place by the motor generated breeze of an upturned fan. It invokes feelings of fancy and whimsy–a poetry of simplicity and grace to behold and be charmed by. State of the Union, on the other hand, calls forth a realm where existence is torn into polarized camps and things are no longer at ease and rupture prevails. Although not represented per se, the American flag is clearly being referenced and the symbolism is both potent and unsettling.
The star motif is also present in a series of C-prints that cast a similar sense of fracture while visually juxtaposing red and blue color fields. In Stuff Happens–which also adorned the cover of a past issue of The Nation–a set of stars have fallen from their blue background and crumbled unto their red stripes; in Star Gazing, a man’s head is hidden by an Abu Ghraib-esque hood made out the star part of the American flag and, finally, that same unmistakable cloth, ripped apart and its edges unraveling, frames a canyon of red in Ripped.
The remains of violence are omnipresent in many of Haacke’s exhibition pieces. But while in earlier works traces of it could be found in the matter-of-fact, quasi-journalistic exposition of, say, the uses of Western-bought arms by the South African police, these new pieces tug on our emotional threads in an almost visceral manner. Untitled #1, an overturned desk, drawers ripped out, crushing a metal nameplate while shards of a broken light bulb are scattered about, invokes an ordinary office gone to hell. The metal plate taken from Haacke’s memorial proposal could stand in for a human body. Long and rusted, it displays the generic words "first name last name," a bulbous scar singed directly into the metal. Similarly, in Untitled #2, a metal locker has been thrust to the ground, an apparent victim to a series of violent blows that have left dents and gashes in it. A splash of small change has fallen from its insides and spread onto the floor like a pool of blood. On the locker, an old broomstick topped off by a gilded eagle rests, its cheap shine an incongruous sight.
From behind the ominous wall hanging, News, a take-off of a piece by the same name Haacke had done in 1969, can be heard as its ink-jet printer churns out "News Flashes" from the main wire agencies. The continuous scroll of paper piles up behind the table on which the printer rests, creating an ever-growing mound of undulated paper, harboring the latest in international affairs, the diplomatic fury over Iran’s nuclear weapons, for instance, as well as fluff, Charles and Camilla’s visit to New York. These are the events that frame our world and lives and make them tick. Across from News and the curtain, a potted orange tree stands alone and small.
And then there is a portrait of President Bush. Stapled on a wall of the reception area, it is easily missed. Haacke has rarely been kind in his depiction of those at the top of the power structure. In 1982, he exhibited Oil painting, Homage to Marcel Broodthaers, at "Documenta 7." The installation commemorates President Reagan’s visit to the Bundestag in Bonn that year, which was met by a huge anti-nuclear demonstration. The piece stages a face-à-face between a wall-sized contact photo of the demonstrating crowd and an oil portrait of Ronald Reagan, his face pinched in a grimace of contempt.
Ten years later, Haacke had a go at the elder President Bush. In Eagle and Prey, Bush Sr.’s portrait is also done in oil paint and ensconced in an elaborate Girandola Frame, an electric candle on either side. He is immortalized with a beaming and idiotic smile.
That same year, Bush Sr. was also cast in Photo Opportunity (After the Storm/Walker Evans). It juxtaposes the lightbox of a photograph that ran in The Washington Post depicting George Bush Sr. leaning on a beam of his storm-ravaged vacation home in Maine, with a photo by Walker Evans of a sharecropper leaning in a similar way. Bush is in casual attire–baseball hat, windbreaker and jeans. A pair of construction gloves is the only indicator of physical labor.
Unflattering depictions aside, Haacke has opted, in all three instances, for media that befit the social stature of these two men. Oil paint has been the medium of choice for portraits of the rich and powerful, while the lightbox could be its photographic equivalent.
But in Commander in Chief, the current President Bush is on a flimsy digital c-print, hastily stapled to the wall, like a street poster. He is delivering is State of the Union speech from the Oval Office, and his eyes are closed
