At Blanton Museum of Art, twins Nikolai and Simon Haas channel their imaginative, strange childhood visions into a large-scale presentation titled Haas Brothers: Uncanny Valley. Collaborating as the Haas Brothers since 2010, the Los Angeles artists are widely known for fantastical flora-and-fauna sculptures with a signature cheeky, surreal bent. In Austin, they gather figurative furniture, plush cartoonish characters, and illuminated installations that crystallize their idiosyncratic aesthetic.
Previously on view at Cranbrook Art Museum and the Museum of Art and Design in New York, Uncanny Valley marks the duos first mid-career survey, bringing together their quirky, genre-defying works. The exhibition also nods to the brothers childhood in Austin, where they lived from age 3 to 19, a span when the unofficial city slogan Keep Austin Weird took hold as a cultural ethos and early influence.
Austin roots, Los Angeles practice
The presentation in Austin reflects the siblings long-running interest in technology and its implications, often probing the uneasy meeting point between the artificial and the natural. Among the works on view is a brilliant, bizarre strawberry tree that seems transplanted from another planet into the gallery, a vivid emblem of the pairs fascination with hybrid forms and altered ecologies.
Inside the uncanny valley
In a statement for the show, Simon Haas frames the exhibitions title as a key to their project: The uncanny valley generally refers to robotics, where empathy for a robot increases the more human you make itup to a point. When the robot becomes too human, empathy switches to revulsion. The solution for this is to add cuteness: when a robot is humanoid with an extra dose of cuteness, empathy for the object skyrockets. Looking at our 15-year career from a birds-eye view, the uncanny valley came into focus as a core theme. The artists illuminated, plush, and figurative creations embrace that logic, spiking familiarity with a dose of offbeat charm.
Uncanny Valley is on view in Austin through January 17, after which it travels to its final location, Mint Museum in Charlotte. An accompanying monograph of the same name is available on Bookshop.
