(Daniel Buchholz, Etablissement d’en face projects)
The critique of calling these Hans Haacke 2.0 would assumedly miss the point: it's more important to take up the mantle of real issues than to redesign its heraldry; the political real takes precedence over aesthetic peacocking. And that "Information" depicting, say, the lineage of certain institutions sketchy holdings as plain as possible might always look like that. And while Haacke's interest centered on the more poisonous assets of art, Rowland's purview concerned with the much larger systemically disenfranchised upon whose sweat these institutions were built and remain standing despite. For both artists the unadorned information/objects in both come across as ominous. Held blankly on walls and floors with little comment both artist's objects come across as simultaneous threat and dejection. No museum today would handle censorship the way the Guggenheim did with Haacke, rejecting his exhibition and firing the curator. Today with similar information you could hold a whole Museum PR department hostage or - and perhaps this where the dejection comes in - things would continue as they are. Maybe Fred Wilson's Mining the Museum is the better example.
See too: Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda at 356 Mission
