Hans Haacke — Condensation Cube

1965

Artists: Hans Haacke · Year: 1965 · Medium: Sealed transparent cube containing water — ambient temperature produces condensation on interior surfaces · Substrate: Clear acrylic cube, small amount of water sealed inside; works as a closed thermodynamic system responding to ambient environment · Place: Cologne / New York · Institution: Independent; subsequent acquisitions by major museums Hans Haacke's Condensation Cube (1963–65) is a sealed clear acrylic cube containing a small amount of water. When installed, the cube responds to ambient temperature and humidity — water evaporates, condenses on the interior surfaces, collects into droplets, runs down the walls, pools at the bottom, evaporates again. The artwork is a closed thermodynamic system whose visible state is always changing. It has no stable form; the "piece" is the process. Condensation Cube is a canonical early example of systems art — the approach that treats artworks as operating processes rather than finished objects. Haacke's subsequent practice extended the approach into political and institutional critique; his 1970 MoMA poll (asking visitors to vote on Rockefeller's political positions) and his 1971 Solomon R. Guggenheim Board of Trustees (documenting the Guggenheim trustees' real-estate holdings in Harlem) moved systems thinking into explicitly political territory and led to major institutional controversy. Condensation Cube is Haacke's earliest work and remains his most widely-exhibited. It's held by MoMA, Centre Pompidou, Tate, and multiple major institutions. Its relationship to computer art is conceptual rather than technical — it argues that an artwork can be a system, which is the proposition underlying the entire cybernetic-art tradition covered elsewhere in this archive. Haacke continues to work. He is based in New York. Lore Haacke was born in 1936 and trained at Staatliche Werkakademie Kassel before moving to New York in 1965. The Condensation Cube was fabricated with assistance from engineers; the specific acrylic used was important to the piece's long-term stability. Haacke's subsequent political work frequently drew on similar systems-art methodology. Sources • MoMA — Hans Haacke collection • Haacke, Hans — Hans Haacke: Framing and Being Framed (New York University Press, 1975) • Grasskamp, Walter; Nesbit, Molly; Bird, Jon — Hans Haacke (Phaidon, 2004)