Hans Haacke
«Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971»

The work consists of 146 photographic views of New York apartment buildings, six pictures of transactions, an explanatory wall panel, and maps of Harlem and the Lower East Side. Each photograph is accompanied by a typed text that dewcribes the location and the financial transctions involving the building in the picture. Haacke discloses the transactions of a real-estate firm between 1951 and 1971. Harry Shapolsky, the key figure, who is well protected by influential friends, is guilty of an assortment of fraudulent practices of which the judicial system has been exceedingly forgiving. Haacke’s one-artist show at the Guggenheim, of which this work was to be part, was canceled by the director of the museum six weeks before the opening, and artists occupied the premises in protest against this censorship.

(source: excerpt from documenta X short guide, Ostfildern 1997, p. 84.)