Group 3 Created with Sketch.
Group 4 Created with Sketch.

All Systems Go: A Symposium on Art, Social Systems, and Cultural Action

35327 ca object representations media 16552 publiclarge

Public Programs

All Systems Go: A Symposium on Art, Social Systems, and Cultural Action

November 9 2019

This daylong symposium brought together artists, scholars, and cultural leaders—including Alexander Alberro, Andrea Fraser, Deana Haggag, Joan Jonas, Jae Rhim Lee, Tatiana Schlossberg, and Cecilia Vicuña—to investigate critical questions provoked by Hans Haacke’s work. The symposium’s keynote featured Hans Haacke in conversation with Brian Wallis, currently of the Walther Collection in Neu-Ulm, Germany, and curator of the 1986 New Museum retrospective, “Hans Haacke: Unfinished Business.” The first panel, “’The Consciousness Industry”: Institutions, Ethics, and Economies,” considered the legacy of Haacke’s institutional critique at a moment of heightened scrutiny around the ethics of funding cultural institutions. The second panel, “What Must Be Done: Ecological Systems and Climate Change,” built from Haacke’s ability to convey the interconnectedness of humans, our economy, and natural environments to explore what systems aesthetics can teach us in the face of climate crisis. In addition to the keynote conversation and panel discussions, the symposium included guided tours of “Hans Haacke: All Connected” and free Museum admission.

Symposia