Kravis wing of the museum, trading the beneficence of one tycoon for another, as it were. Lauder Collection, there was a not-inconspicuous brass wall plaque announcing that I had entered the Henry R. As I passed through the exit at the conclusion of the Met’s marvelous exhibition, Cubism: The Leonard A. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.Ĭould Koch ever entertain the notion that “consumer relations” with art lovers and culture workers would be ameliorated by the sight of his name in large brass letters outside the finest repository of art and artifacts in the country? (The letters of Koch’s name, as if to ensure that the Met won’t have a change of heart, are individually recessed into the fountains’ granite walls, so that it’s unlikely they can be removed without replacing the entire stone block.) These can often provide a creative and cost effective answer to a specific marketing objective, particularly where international, governmental or consumer relations may be a fundamental concern. Many public relations opportunities are available through the sponsorship of programs, special exhibitions and services. In 1985, for a show at the fabled John Weber Gallery in Soho, the artist used the exhibition’s announcement card to disseminate the following text from the same leaflet: Haacke has never had to make stuff up all he does is wave his arms and call out, “Over here - look over here.” In the thirty years since, the collusion between big culture and big money - which reaches back, in the Met’s case, to the robber barons of the first Gilded Age - has only gotten thicker. The banner’s text would sound baseless and snarky if it weren’t taken directly from a leaflet published by the Met in 1984. overall installation dimensions variable edition 1 of 1, 1 AP. photo-collaged hundred dollar bills, each: 8 x 16 1/2 in. Hans Haacke, installation view, detail: “The Business Behind Art Knows the Art of the Koch Brothers” (2014) C-print overall triptych framed: 37 x 99 1/2 x 1 3/8 in. Between those images, there is a picture of a banner hanging from a pair of Corinthian columns on the museum’s façade, its message Photoshopped to read “The Business Behind Art knows the Art of Good Business.” Directly below that slogan is the Met’s neoclassical logo, and farther down, “Your Company and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Scores of giant $100 bills, printed with images of clear, splashing water, pour down the wall from framed photographs of Koch’s name on the plaza’s matching fountains. “The Business Behind Art Knows the Art of the Koch Brothers,” as a title, is singularly depressing, but the work itself is Keaton-esque in its deadpan sendup of the museum’s folly. Now that the corruption of the electoral process by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision is complete, along with, as of last week, the subsequent right-wing takeover of the federal government, maybe we’re ready to listen. The subterranean channels connecting art, wealth, and power are exactly what Hans Haacke has been all over for the past four or five decades. Why the reversal in the face of certain opposition? Did $65 million - or, more likely, the possibility of wooing millions more - speak that loudly? The Met originally announced that the plaza - financed by Koch to the tune of $65 million - would remain unnamed, which felt like a backdoor accommodation to those sensitivities. What gives? The boards of these institutions are no doubt aware of the fear and loathing that the Koch name (which includes David’s brother Charles) provokes in the creative community. Koch has now left his mark on the East Side, at the Met, and the West Side, where Lincoln Center’s former New York State Theater, which the New York City Ballet calls home, is named after him as well. Koch, the left’s favorite low-hanging fruit, is the subject of Hans Haacke’s latest jeremiad on the state of institutional culture, an installation called “The Business Behind Art Knows the Art of the Koch Brothers” (2014), which takes aim at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s newly unveiled and much-pilloried David H. overall installation dimensions variable edition 1 of 1, 1 AP (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)ĭavid H. Hans Haacke, installation view: foreground, “Together” (1969-2013) water, plastic tubing, plastic connectors, 2 motors overall installation dimensions variable edition 1 of 3, 1 AP (background) “The Business Behind Art Knows the Art of the Koch Brothers” (2014) C-print overall triptych framed: 37 x 99 1/2 x 1 3/8 in.
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