The Saatchi Collection (Simulations)

Hans Haacke’s work reveals secret bedfellows, tainted trails of money, and corrupt webs of influence. In order to preserve his artistic independence, Haacke seeks to disrupt the complacency and bottom-up money funneling so rampant in the contemporary art economy and in the world economy at large. Focusing in the 1980s on the growing relationship between corporations and museums, Haacke here targets British art collector Charles Saatchi. Saatchi is also known as the advertising mogul whose firm managed three election campaigns for the conservative former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and a deliberately exclusionary constitutional referendum in South Africa. Using campaign pageantry and display, Haacke presents with fanfare a money trail leading from corruption to culture.