The Telephone Is Ringing

by Babs Rappleye (aka Tucker Neel)

Artillery Magazine, Jan./Feb. 2020.

Dear Babs, I really liked Hans Haacke’s retrospective at The New Museum, specifically his polls that asked viewers their opinions about current news and events. It’s cool he wants his audience to interact with his art. But it got me thinking, why can’t I contact him directly? Why can’t I contact most artists in museum shows directly? It seems weird.

—Curious for Contacts

Dear Curious, You’re right. It is weird it’s often so hard to contact artists featured in museum exhibitions, especially in museums supported by public funding. And it’s even weirder you can’t contact an artist like Hans Haacke, because he’s famous for his “institutional critique,” a broad term for art that critiques or exposes the contradictions and problems of the very art spaces that exhibit it. It’s weird that an artist like Haacke, who’s all about transparency, isn’t more accessible to his viewers. Come to think of it, the lack of communication you mention might have gotten Haacke into a bit of trouble. In a wonderfully alliterative gesture, two artists hacked Haacke’s digital polls to protest The New Museum’s ongoing and very hypocritical efforts to prevent their employees from unionizing. The hackers’ work would have been less impactful if everyone knew they could easily contact Haacke directly. After all, he supposedly shares their politics and they could have asked him to help out or make an even bigger statement.

Of course most “emerging” artists today are on social media and/or have contact info on their website. But with more established artists there does seem to be a distance rooted in the antiquated idea of the alienated artistic genius who’s beyond contact or understanding. In fact, Yoko Ono regularly engages this in Telephone Peace, where she calls a simple telephone on a pedestal or wall in the gallery and anyone who picks it up can talk with her. But she’s also on social media and her verified Twitter account @yokoono is inspiring.

Realistically, your best bet for getting in contact with Haacke—or any big name artist —is through their private gallery, which serves as a kind of intermediary, like an agent does for a Hollywood celebrity. You can email Paula Cooper, Haacke’s New York gallery, at info@paulacoopergallery.com. Your message will have to make its way through interns, assistants and managers, but maybe it just might reach the man himself. In other circumstances, I’d suggest contacting Haacke through The New Museum at info@newmuseum.org, but they seem to be a bit busy at the moment.