KMA: Constant Carnival: The Haas Brothers in Context

This new exhibition at the Katonah Museum of Art explores the work of contemporary artists Simon and Nikolai Haas within the art historical tradition of the carnivalesque. The exhibition is the first to pair the Haas Brothers’ sculptures and drawings with historical, modern, and contemporary masterworks.

The exhibition, which traces the history of the carnivalesque from the festival of Carnival in medieval Europe to the modern day Mardi Gras, is loosely organized around two themes: The World Turned Upside Down and  celebrating the Profane. Each section will put historical and contemporary works in conversation with each other and with the Haas Brothers’ designs whose bright, beaded beasts, playful and carnal, are the modern-day ancestors of Hieronymus Bosch’s fantastical creatures and Mike Kelley’s scatological assemblages. Other artists represented in the exhibition include Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dali, Joan Miró, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Kiki Smith.