Hans Haacke, Wide White Flow, 1967

Looking at Hans Haache’s Floating Sphere yesterday made me think about another work of Haacke’s that surprised me when I came across it at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York a few years ago (February 2008, fact fans). I’d gone to the show because I was in New York with students and at least one Chelsea gallery day is kind of compulsory and because I really like Hans Haacke’s work but haven’t seen nearly as much of it as I’d like in real life; as on any visit to New York, there wasn’t time to see everything I wanted to, but this was always going to be high enough on my list to make the cut. My previous knowledge of Haacke’s work was in the main of more politically driven works and of a drier, more conceptual approach.

I fully expected to be interested and absorbed. Being bowled over by the beauty of the work came as a complete surprise.

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