Hans Haacke Receives Compensation for Long Lost Work

MUNICH—The city of Munich has been ordered to compensate conceptual artist Hans Haacke 11,500 euros for Die Fahne Hoch, a work that went missing after a 1991 exhibition in the municipal Galerie in Lenbachhaus, reports Der Standard.

Haacke, who lives in New York, created the work for a group exhibition protesting the Gulf War in 1991. The installation called out German corporations that did business with Iraq and was removed from the show before it opened through a court injunction sought by the gas company Ruhrgas. When Haacke tried to retrieve the work after the exhibition, however, it had disappeared.

Last year, while preparing for a retrospective in honor of his 70th birthday, Haacke was reminded of the incident and filed suit against the city of Munich, seeking 13,500 euros in compensation and damages. The Munich regional court agreed to 11,500, the presumed value of the work, but not to 2,000 for labor costs.