The context as host: Hans Haacke’s art of textual exhibition

Abstract

This paper analyzes the ways in which Hans Haacke’s works operate within printed matter. Artworks are discussed that have been censored and have subsequently experienced “second careers” — simultaneously re-presented in both texts and galleries. As well, Haacke’s textworks are addressed, projects made specifically for magazines, which span the gap between art and documentation. Drawing on the theories of J. Hillis Miller, it is posited that almost any reproduction of Haacke’s artwork can function “parasitically” when situated inside other texts. Miller asks: “What happens when a critical essay extracts a ‘passage’ and ‘cites’ it? … Is the citation an alien parasite within the body of its host, the main text, or is it the other way around, the interpretive text the parasite which surrounds and strangles the citation which is its host?” Haacke’s projects, which often employ their frame as a medium, possess the dialectical logic described by Miller. The artist’s textworks perform institutional critique in much the same way as their counterparts in brick-and-mortar galleries: Haacke interrogates epistemological boundaries, questions the authority of the frame, and spreads politically charged messages. Indeed, printed on the white page, Haacke’s pieces are perhaps as effective as works exhibited in the white cube.