Hans Haacke: A look at political art at its finest

Hans Haacke was born in Cologne in 1936 and partly lives there, but since 1962 he has also had a well -used permanent residence in New York.

Haacke is part of the crème de la crème of the internationally known concept artists . The artist, who was as ingenious and uncomfortably democratic absurdities, often caused a sensation during his career; It was almost always the political aspects of his work that donated unrest.

Hans Haacke currently occupies 215 in the world rankings of art , but has only reached this illustrious rank in the course of the exhibitions and public honors around his 75th birthday.

In 2005 he was still a good 350 places below, "a bit beaten" for the long -standing and active work of the artist and his always a lot of attention. A look at Hans Haacke's, which is not always finely reserved, suggests that Haacke's critical political commitment plays a rather important role:

Art by Hans Haacke

Haacke already addressed systems and processes in his earliest work as a concept artist; As a young artist, he initially devoted himself to interactions of physical and biological systems, he "installed" animals and plants, water and wind.

In 1965 the "Condensation Cube" (condensation cube), plexiglass with water, 76 x 76 x 76 cm was created: Open the image of Flickr .

An approximation to the infinite water cycle of nature, which remains in motion plexiglass An approximation also to the art recipient, because the condensation cube reacts to light, air currents and temperature. Even at body temperature, the body of a single person is (independent of performance) around 100 watts.

For comparison: radiators in houses, which is normally insulated according to today's standards, are designed for an output of 100 watts per square meter. The more visitors, the warmer the museum and thus the interior of the cubes (if the in -house technicians in the museum were instructed to switch off temperature -effective heating thermostats) - the more evaporation, condensation and precipitation in the "Condensation Cube".

Is that supposed to be art? The physics teacher explained the water cycle? Yes, yes, the "Condensation Cube" is already art because Hans Haacke made him as art; In terms of annoyance as a work of art, however, there is also few discussions because it absolutely has an aesthetic, mysterious, artistic charisma.

Making art out of a physical natural phenomenon fits Hans Haacke's view of art that later commented as follows:

"I believe that a rational, almost positivist approach can actually be led to a point where it blooms to something very poetic, weightless and irrational." ( postwar.hausderkunst.de/ ).

But that wasn't Haacke's single intention. With the Cube, he also wanted to mix up the usual customs in the world of art presentation a little: the museum visitor, who looks at the physical phenomenon and thus influences, becomes a cultural phenomenon together with art.

The constantly changing condensation cubes are one of the first works of art that do not wait static as the normal, conservative sculpture, but involve the visitor, stimulate his senses, make it curious through change.

Art that includes the visitor developed "in all directions" in the 1960s: as a cybernetic art, Process Art, Conceptual Art , Systems Art or Systemic Art (closely related to, arising from, overlapping with anti-form movement, generative systems aesthetic, systemic painting and systems sculptures ).

Some of these art styles play with the material , the idea of ​​art and/or the viewer ( concept art , the process art emerged from the performance), a part is limited to a technical but completely new handling of the material (kinetic art, which for many found its peak in the friendly hell machines of a Jean Tinguely).

Incidentally, the "Condensation Cube" has achieved such celebrity that it resumed Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona

Haacke is one of the conceptual artists who, with material and art viewer, have a lot of projects, but his idea of ​​art should continue to develop very decisively: The critical interest shown here early on for the conditions under which art is produced and exhibited did not remain limited to art, but soon dealt with the entire society and thus turned to politics and its criticism.

Before that, Haacke experimented a bit, with some approaches towards "Land Art" . In the “Land Art”, the landscape becomes art , such as in Haackes “Grass Grows” (1967-1969, Picture of Grass Grows ), but Haacke has not yet left civilization with his indoor growing grass hill ...

Other country artists go into a somewhat deeper contact with nature, Andy Goldsworthy, for example, calls branches and the pebbles in the river bed to order ( Kurzelinks.de/H38X ), get the stars out of the ice ( Open the picture ) and make trees warm feet ( open picture ).

Hans Haacke quickly returned 100 % to the city and turned to politics and society quickly, first in a critical view of business, politics and art :

In 1971, a single exhibition dedicated to Hans Haacke was to take place in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York . Hans Haacke presented the installation "Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real Time Social System, AS of May 1, 1971" , in which he deals with real estate ownership and speculation of one of the most important New York players.

The work reveals the questionable transactions around Harry Shapolsky's real estate company in an meticulous documentation with photos. From 1951 to 1971.

Six weeks before the opening, the exhibition was canceled by the then director of the Guggenheim Museum because the installation presented by Haacke was not an appropriate art for the Guggenheim Museum; It is a social study and a clear statement by the artist and not "neutral art".

Neutral art? The director has thus announced one of the most important museums in the world that he believes of freedom of art and freedom of expression; Haacke's scorned work became the icon of political concept art and the historical landmark , which z. B. 2007 was reversed in the Whitney Museum of American Art, here a partial view of the installation on this exhibition: Open the image .

Edward F. Fry, the curator of the exhibition, solidarized with Haacke and was released, director Thomas M. Messer remained director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York until 1988, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

After the trouble with the Guggenheim and New York, Haacke turned to Europe and his homeland Germany, where his work was more and more and more accepted.

But here too the artist founded: in 1974 Haacke in Cologne documented the provenance of Édouard Manet 's "asparagus living life" . Including the purchase for the Cologne collection, which was done on the initiative of the then chairman of the association, including the role of this chairman (Hermann Josef ABS) in the Third Reich.

In the late 1980s, Hans Haacke expanded his spectrum again; He started with large sculptural installations and increasingly worked in the field of painting .

Which did not go peacefully for long: in 1990 Haacke painted the "Cowboy with Cigarette" with coal and ink on pastel paper . The transformation of a classic Picasso into cigarette advertising was Haacke reaction to the financial support of the cubism exhibition "Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism" in the MoMA by the tobacco group Phillip Morris and whirled up some unrest.

In 1990 it also smoked in the just reunited Germany, Hans Haacke, captured zeitgeist and chief turn-up protagonist in the multiple "Silberblick" : a photographic portrait by Helmut Kohl with 1 DM and 2 Ostmark on the glasses and the precisely suitable "Feeist grin" open on the lips: picture .

A work of art that many Germans still pissed off regardless of roots in East or West; Especially when you remember how "trust" some trust employees did their job and that most perpetrators went out without punishment or have not even been charged (documentation "Goldrausch-The History of Treuhand", most recently sent 06.10.2016 in the SWR.

In 1993, Haacke stamped the German pavilion on the 45th Biennale of Venice "Germania" . The installation creates exactly the atmosphere of Hitlersch Showers: Open the picture and should remind of the roots of the Biennale in the cultural policy of fascist Italy.

To this end, Haacke had upset the marble floor of the German pavilion, which was still designed by the Nazis, in the Giardini of Venice and left behind in the photo ... Haacke was awarded the golden lion (together with Nam June Paik) .

In 2000, Hans Haacke's art project "The Population" installed in the German Reichstag building. Since then there has been a box in the northern atrium, in which members of the Bundestag Earth filled from their constituency and are now sprouting different plants from random seeds.

In the middle of the box, the lettering "of the population" , which can be read from all floors of the Bundestag, shines. Hans Haacke refers to the famous lettering "The German Volke" at the Reichstag.

Haacke clarifies the difference between meaning between the people and the population: The "people", actually nothing more than the state people from all nationals, appeared in Germany for the last time as a folk community, in which crimes and compassionate crimes for a self-proclaimed leader.

Germans see the horror in the German people with mind and heart, have been seeing for a long time and for all times. In his action, Hans Haacke was inspired by a sentence Brecht's: "Anyone who says in our time instead of the people of the population [...] does not support many lies."

Because they recognize the true intention of politicians who - present on all channels - summon the German people instead of solving problems from the German population, like most politicians in painstaking unspectacular work.

Even if your own lies, the hiding the inability to solve any problems, should be obscured by the invention of a lying press. Whenever it gets a little complicated, the simple solutions simply stand in the way of the simple solutions, and politicians of such a strip know writers like Bertolt Brecht anyway, their writing is too complicated for them.

Incidentally, the most beautiful photo of the art project was taken by the Saarland Green member of the Bundestag Markus Tressel. On the website Derbevoelkung.de , you can see the daily appearance of the artwork, at the time of the creation of this article 11.2016 in almost 12,000 pictures (the webcam installed in the courtyard of the Reichstag takes a picture every day at 2 p.m.).

In 2006, Haacke let the windows of the Faitade of the Akademie der Künste Berlin temporarily stick to posters "No beautiful country .

Until September 5, 2016, Haacke's "Gift Horse" on the Fourth Plinth at the Trafalgar Square London. You can find out more about the Fourth Plinth in the article to go to the art :" A Space Called Public-Hopefully public " .

However, Haackes bronze horse has already been emaciated to the skeleton, because today's high gentlemen does not have any interest in real life with horses, dogs and people, but only have eyes for the live ticker with the share courses (which the "Gift Horse also carries like a" gift ribbon "around the front).

Still a work of unconditional aesthetics; And if the press criticizes that Hans Haacke's reminder against the superiority of the money in London has little bit, the respective author could have been able to contribute a proposal to how to put trumpeted lies out of populists with the slightest effort.

Shouting out the truth even louder? Perhaps, maybe the British would then have missed Brexit (which is just commented on the picture on the Fourth Plinth by David Shrigley , open the picture ).

And maybe Hans Haacke is already working on a sufficiently snappy sculpture by the new American hero - which is actually not very many Americans. The actual supporters of the new edition of the Manchester capitalist limited to defiant counter-course are the white industrial proletarians, uninterested men in advanced age, who can not get themselves up for new orientation or networking and commitment to their own interests.

These are just a few tragic figures; The rest "simply" put a non-politician in front of the poorly functioning political team instead of taking care of the political team as a democratic citizen. Like the British "just" turned their back on the EU's own government, with already noticeable disastrous consequences, especially for the loudest betting sections.

It would be about the same logical and efficient to replace the PS cracks with the "better moving and knowledgeable" spectators of the first rows at the next Formula 1 World Cup. It would probably be similarly dangerous: the likelihood that driving beginners with 900 hp floors will drive across the gang into the auditorium is just as predictable as the probability that the government compiled by the beginner will drive the USA on the wall.

The new form of light of the Americans believes in human breeding selection by pairing of "suitable specimens" and is one of the "breeding quality people", with five -time success.

This fact provides enough material for biting art, further ideas could create the initials reminiscent of Stephen King's "Dark-Tower Cycle" -after all, the fantasy saga is about exactly the world in post-apocalyptic decay, to which America could mutate through this choice (this is not a joke, but to be seen in Deutschlandfunk Culture: Who chooses Donald Trump-and why? ).

Hans Haacke's way to art

Hans Haacke studied art, from 1956 to 1960 at the State Working Academy Kassel (from 1960 State University for Fine Arts Kassel).

After the 1st state examination, a scholarship from the German Academic Service in Paris followed in 1960.

From 1961 to 1962 Haacke studied as a Fulbright scholarship holder at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The American Fulbright program has been awarding scholarships for study, research and teaching stays in the United States since 1946. The beginnings go back to the initiative of US Senator James William Fulbright, who had studied in Great Britain in 1945 in 1945 and wanted to promote understanding between the United States and other countries after the Second World War through academic and cultural exchange; The start-up financing took place through the sale of excess US war goods.

In the meantime, the Fulbright is one of the most prestigious scholarship programs worldwide; Since it was founded, over 318,000 scholarship holders have been promoted worldwide, with outstanding successes: 10 Fulbright Alumni have so far been elected to the US Congress, 31 have become government or state chief and 20 foreign ministers of their home countries.

54 Fulbright Alumni from 14 countries received the Nobel Prize and 82 the Pulitzer Prize; Fulbright Alumni Javier Solana became general secretary of NATO and Fulbright Alumni Boutros Boutros-Ghali became general secretary of the United Nations.

In the meantime, more than 180 countries are the USA's contracting parties in the Fulbright program, and more people are currently being encouraged than ever with around 8,000 scholarship holders. The Fulbright program is regulated by a wealth of bilateral contracts and agreements and thus proves "Schlappe 70 years" that advantageous contracts with the USA are also possible for the contracting parties.

Agreements on trade relationships such as TTIP , for centuries, between states, could certainly bring advantages to the European contracting parties. While this article is written, TTIP dies, especially under the rebellion of hereditary, especially German citizens. The tenor floats about almost every media report on the fate of TTIP: "Now we have given the chlorine chicken eaters!"

The closer employment with TTIP might have revealed less crude over-advanced intentions of the US negotiating partners than the inheritance feared citizens ... and this annoyance of the European/German citizens might have been supposed to be directed against their own representatives involved in the negotiations and not against the contractual partner: The previously determined democratic dignitar (Germany in a dimensions that should not be underestimated) and not the Side of the United States:

The European Commission also negotiated the German secret with the US Ministry of Trade; Our representatives were allowed to read the complicated legal texts of a few thousand pages in a special reading room, without copying (this is mockery, no information); And the public (including the media) should only see the text of the agreement after the end of the negotiations.

In the meantime, the European Commission had conveniently conveniently made it, Bundestag President Norbert Lammert, together with EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker October 2015, officially requested inspection for every EU member state and made the approval of TTIP dependent on this transparency; Numerous TTIP texts have been published via TTIP Leaks (Greenpeace: Trade Leaks by Greenpeace )-everything too late, the TTIP negotiations were exposed to the presidential elections and have now most likely died for at least 2 years with the new President happiness in America.

Certainly so good in terms of secret negotiations, in two years the last politician should also have understood that secret knowledge of rule in internet pages is no longer secret.

Hans Haacke's work has contributed to the fact that the citizens who live in their country and not against their country are now decisive for transparency about how they are ruled ... if we get the curve and do not let the world be traced back to overcome stages of civilization, which in extreme cases could be bombed back into pre -zivalry times.

Back to Hans Haacke and his training: In 1973 Hans Haacke, who was already living in the USA, received the opportunity to work freely artistically for a while through the second scholarship between John Simon Guggenheim-Foundation.

Haacke and Haacke art in public appearance

The first group exhibitions Haackes took place in 1962 in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam ("Nul"), in 1963 in the artist settlement Halfmannshof in Gelsenkirchen and 1964 in the New Vision Center in London. The exhibitions from 1963 and 1964 already focused on the work of the Düsseldorf artist group Zero, in which Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker wanted to free post -war art from their "excess of ballast".

With Zero , Hans Haacke made his first train through the international art world in 1964/1965, from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia to the Washington Gallery of Modern Art, Washington DC and then to Italy, Venice, Turin, Rome, Brescia. The first solo exhibition , "Hans Haacke. Wind and Water" in the Schmela gallery in Dusseldorf, immediately followed in 1965.

In 1978 a Haacke solo exhibition place in the Museum of Modern Art Oxford (with "A Breed Apart" , criticism of the State Group British Leyland for exports to racist states such as the then South Africa). 1972 (Documenta 5), ​​1982 (Documenta 7) and 1987 (Documenta 8) Hans Haacke took part in the Documenta in Kassel .

In 1993 Haacke with Nam June Paik with the German Pavilion at the Biennale in Venice, in 1984 he took part in the exhibition "From here-two months of new German art" in Düsseldorf, in 1988 he exhibited in the London Tate Gallery (including the Thatcher portrait "Taking Stock", on the plates at the back Grinsen Maurice and Charles Saatchi , art and art. Political makers of Thatcher and the South African Premier PW Botha), which is not exactly known for delicate subtle, the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid honored him in 2012 with an extensive work show.

At that time, Hans Haacke has had 50 years of exhibition history with around 30 solo exhibitions and around 350 group exhibitions.

A little bit if you look at Haacke around the world's best list of art. This world rankings of art is made by artfacts.net Ltd. Created that the public presence of an artist is evaluated and therefore remains free of the evaluations that may not be impartial.

This approach appeared to the author as part of the as objective reporting as possible, he should certainly like the democratically committed Hans Haacke.

At the same level as Haacke (rank 215), Jackson Pollock (rank 212, around 550 exhibitions), Jean Michel Basquiat (rank 216, around 470 exhibitions) and the young Romanian artist Mircea Cantor (number 217, around 300 exhibitions since 2000).

Emil Nolde 1867-1956 (rank 213, around 700 exhibitions), Edgar Degas 1834-1917 (214, around 600 exhibitions) and Claude Monet 1840-1926 (218, around 600 exhibitions) stand out even more clearly, but six decades to almost a century of posthuman exhibition history are compared here.

Anyway, it is noticeable. It fits that Hans Haacke was awarded only very cautiously by the German State (2004 Peter Weiss Prize of the City of Bochum, 2006 Roland Prize of the Bremen sculpture Prize for Art in Public Space); Wolf Vostell's 20 places behind him has z. B. brought to three times the amount of German awards.

However, the question of how much the prominence comparable to artists has significantly lower exhibition presence/label frequency Hans Haackes has to do with the fact that new political inconvenience can be expected from every new exhibition, but will hardly be clarified.

But "ask questions" is the beginning of every political will formation process, and Hans Haackes questions are asked. His exhibition history continues in these current or soon planned exhibitions:

• until January 8, 2017: "We call it Ludwig. The museum will be 40!", Museum Ludwig Cologne
• From June 01, 2017: "Macba Collection 31", Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
• From June 02, 2017: "Serial formations. Frankfurt 1967-re-staging of the first German exhibition of international minimalist", Daimler Contemporary Berlin

In the future, a lot of exhibitions can certainly be expected in which art by Hans Haacke can be seen. Assuming, of course, that individuals who refuse political participation, but the resulting negative changes in their life situation want to be repaired by right -wing populists (who will do the devil, how historical experience should have taught the Germans too thoroughly), do not celebrate further success.

They could bring our freedom and thus the freedom of art into serious distress, art exhibitions (especially with politically critically committed artists) will then be quickly and comprehensively restricted together with other civil freedom.

In the following 22 public collections, works by Hans Haacke are (still) available for a long time and affordable for every citizen:

• Belgium : Stedelijk Museum Voor Actuele Art (Smak), Ghent
• Germany : Reinking Hamburg Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art Siegen
• France : Frac Bourgogne Dijon, Frac Nord-Pas de Calais Dunkerque, Institut d'Art Contemporain Rhône-Alpes Villeurbanne
• Canada : National Gallery of Canada-Musée des Beaux-Arts du Canada, Ottawa, on
• Croatia : Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (MSU), Zagreb
• Austria : Museum of Modernity, Salzburg
• Spain : Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
• Sweden : Moderna Museet, Stockholm
• Switzerland : Photo Museum Winterthur
• United Kingdom : Tate Liverpool, Tate Britain London
• USA : List Visual Arts Center Cambridge MA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art Ca, Moca Grand Avenue Los Angeles CA, Museum of Modern Art + New Museum New York City NY, Allen Memorial Art Museum Oberlin OH, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art San Francisco CA, BROAD CONTIMARY ART MUSSUM SOTAMICA CA CA

Hans Haacke's work - hopefully) continues

The artist Hans Haacke gives us suggestions and warnings into the future with his work and his work in several ways:

1. Teached art knowledge

Hans Haacke began to pass on his knowledge to the next generations. Between 1967 and 2002 Haacke was an art professor at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City.

The "Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art" is a college in New York Cities Lower Manhattan, which has been privately operated since 1859. The Cooper Union is one of the higher educational institutions in the United States, which grants its students a fee -free degree.

By selecting applicants strictly after talent regardless of the social background and financed by donating sponsors, the Cooper Union helped many graduates to success, whose personal situation could not be described as promotion:

So z. B. Emil Berliner (inventor of the gramophone), Thomas Alva Edison (inventor of the light bulb), Bob Kane (inventor and draftsman of Batman), Lee Krasner (famous American painter and collage artist and wife of "Action Painter" Jackson Pollock ), Daniel Libeskind (architect for Memory Foundations, the master plan for the redesign of the World Trade Center Site, and the Jewish Museum Berlin), Mike Mills (director z. B. from "Thumbsucker", at the Berlinale 2005 for the Golden Bear and at the Sundance Film Festival 2005 for the Grand Jury Price, and "Beginners", Gotham Award 2011, Oscar + Golden Golden Award for Christopher Plummer as the best supporting actor 2012) and George Segal (American artist, who became known primarily through plaster figures) to the Cooper Union.

It can be assumed that Hans Haacke, who was interested in the same right, did not choose the Cooper Union for his teaching.

2nd impetus for discussion: The image rights on the Internet

At a work of art by Hans Haacke, one of the first dispute ignited for image rights on the Internet.

In August 2006, Haacke prohibited Haacke to map parts of the artwork on her website. This claim of a copyright due to him did not want to grant the artist a number of outraged citizens because the art project was funded by public funds. Interesting view means e.g. B. Free harvest on every field for which a farmer receives subsidies.

Because the blogger only wanted to use the illustration of the protected work on a private, not commercial website. Apart from the fact that one could doubt the private non -commercial intentions if, as here, it is a recognizable political website of a person who has earned their money in politics for many years, this is also a highly interesting view: in the end, this means that every non -commercial actor can have the value creation of its fellow citizens; I don't even think Marx's communism that largely.

Because there is no corresponding sign on the work of art; "If artists do not want photos of certain works of art to be published on the Internet, this should also be communicated clearly and clearly" , the politically active blogger, which is actually familiar with the German legal system.

Now the author finally understands the many signs that adorned the supermarket shelves years ago: "We dealers do not wish that goods are taken away by customers without payment, and hereby communicate this clearly" , it was probably ...

3. Mindfulness, long before it became a trend

Hans Haacke teaches us to attentive the world carefully into its smallest phenomena.

He practiced mindfulness when designing and making his art and was interested in sustainability; Decades before these terms became keywords of a society that was dominated in consumer delusion.

Hans Haackes initially free and experimental and then accurate, scientific approach to the artistic process can now serve us much better as a model than was the case during the most part of the time in which Haacke produced its art.

Because until a short time ago, Hans Haacke had to go to a library or find an (possibly expensive) specialist and pay if he wanted to get to the bottom of a topic; All people who (stimulated by Haacke or anyway) wanted to take a close look at their world had to struggle with the same, infinitely time -consuming difficulty.

Today you only need a network connection and enough education to distinguish profound information from stupid chattering. You can also acquire this education on the Internet, you only have to stay away from strategically working "Müsdibells", which defamate the difficult work of professional information brokers as a lying press so that your stupid supporters never become smarter.

4. Democrats fight for democracy

Hans Haacke also teaches us what consequences inevitably arise from this attentive perception: Looking carefully means questioning; Whoever looks, realizes where what is wrong; Most eligible duty of the citizen in the democratic system is the procedure against apparently shortening defects of our democracy - before the respective citizen himself suffers from these defects. This currently lacks huge, the German society of the present "loses" in a wide variety of citizens:

The number of people who live (and die) unprotected on Germany will soon reach the million border. This number is too high, and many of the "" bums "," city and land strings "are alcoholics or do not want to be treated or re-socialized for other reasons?

Oh yes, there are very different numbers (noticeably not an official statistics of the federal government), but the lowest -set statistics also go to hundreds of thousands. And yes, there are severe alcoholic among people without a permanent residence - but this objection is not good because civilized societies do not let them die on the street, but treat the disease.

There are also people without an apartment who, for other reasons, do not want to be treated or re -socialized for other reasons; If you take a closer look at this whole area, you come across bureaucratic aid concepts and offers that fail in practice, to refuse to work and abuse and to a whole series of crimes that are not pursued by the state (not by the homeless, not by them).

That was only one area, in Germany tens of thousands of people die from hospital germs, medication interactions and artificial errors every year because the medical sisters working in the medical field, in administration, organization, hygiene- are prevented by profit-optimizing corporate leaders at specialist and appropriate work.

Job center convey frustration, but no jobs; Insurance would prefer to take money and more often than they fulfill their performance obligations; Courts end massive citizens' existences (e.g. withdrawal of children or economic annihilation through questionable reports); And if the incorrect behavior of the state's business representatives touch the criminal area, the German public prosecutors are relieved.

Did you know that Germany only helped the "UN Convention against Corruption" from 2005 to domestic validity in December 2014? Nine years after entry into force, as state No. 174 of 184 countries in the world?

We also only ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of 2006, as a six-stroked country in the world, much later as a poorest countries such as Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Niger, Rwanda and Unganda, to whom the Human Development Index of "Low Human Development" certified ...

In the past, not everything was better. Through the Internet, the quantum leap in information transfer, we only find out much more precisely what is wrong where not; In all areas just mentioned, there are already initial corrections or positive developments, but: The worst thing about the current undesirable developments is that many of the (not yet) affected people simply displace the perception of unauthorized developments.

The victims brought around the existence/health/apartment are still happy to be blamed; You myself have so much smarter ... we already had, these people were called "followers" at the time. To the delight of revised civil servants who would otherwise have to work for the creation of reasonable working conditions; To the joy of uninhibited neoliberalists, who remain enough wealthy quiet treads that they can take out.

Others require, but actually manage to choose right -wing populists to their leaders, of which not only bad effects on existence/health/apartment are to be expected; This is defiant escape and refusal to cooperate in the state in which these protesters live.

All of this creates an bad feeling that has laid out across our country like a kind of false basic tone. It will only change if more citizens decide to cooperate in democracy. The chances of this were never as favorable as it was now: Since the arrival of the first refugees, incredible amounts of citizens have proven, which they can set up independently without a state; It is mentally only the logical next step to set up a state in which the entire government works for society ...

The facts of the facts are already helpful against the diffuse, intangible threatening mood. Anyone who makes it clear that in a really civilized country, not a single person dies on the street, hospital germs or false treatments or expropriated by courts for no reason, imprisoned, deprived of their family, will briefly belong to those who are also familiar with active, critical cooperation in the state.

What we can do in contrast to Haacke today: We can network, put together, and in more and more areas form larger and larger communities that are working on correcting the revealing democratic defects.

We hope for the 80 years as Hans Haacke (who on the occasion of his birthday complained about the currently difficult conditions for provocative political art) that he also experienced his 90th birthday and can find that German citizens have recaptured their state and their democracy.

Hans Haacke, short short biography

• August 12, 1936 Hans Haacke was born in Cologne
• 1956 to 1960 State State Working Academy Kassel
• 1960 Scholarship of the German Academic Areas in Paris
• 1961 to 1962 Fulbright scholarship, Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• From 1967 to 2002 Haacke taught as an art professor at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City
• 1972 Haacke participates in Documenta 5 in Kassel
• 1982 Haacke takes part in Documenta 7 in Kassel
• 1987 Haacke takes part in Documenta 8 in Kassel
• In 1993 Haacke shared the Golden Lion for the Design of the German Pavilion at the Biennale in Venice with Nam June Paik
• In 1998 the Bauhaus University Weimar Hans Haacke awarded the honorary doctorate
• In 1999 the art project "of the population" was created in the German Reichstag building
• In 2004 Haacke received the Peter Weiss Prize of the city of Bochum
• In 2006 Haacke was awarded the Roland Prize for Art in Public Space
• In 2012 the Museo Reina Sofía Madrid Haacke honored with an extensive work show
• From March 2015 to September 2016, Haacke stocked the Fourth Plinth on the Trafalgar Square with his "Gift Horse"