PREVIEW:The Haas Brothers

Twin brothers Nikolai and Simon Haas seamlessly bridge the slippery divide between fine art and functional design. Infusing their practice with humor, irreverence, and inventive originality, they are widely celebrated for riotously colorful biomorphic forms, genitalia-adorned furniture, and pun-infused titles. Beneath this captivating whimsy lies a foundation of deep intellectual, conceptual, and technical rigor. By pairing Nikolai’s organic expressionism with Simon’s analytical systemization, the artists harmonize a disciplined approach to materiality with a commitment to dismantling rigid social constraints, cultivating profound emotional and spiritual resonance within their work.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Boesky Gallery Gallery

The Haas Brothers navigate a vast material landscape, working in brass, bronze, glass, marble, porcelain, and wool. Having launched their careers in functional design, their output effortlessly marries the utilitarian with the fantastical. Stools, mirrors, chairs, streetlamps, and side tables sprout plush, furry bodies or sculpted biomorphic brass feet. Simultaneously, their standalone sculptures give life to a cast of fantastical beasts, giant mushrooms, and otherworldly creatures—often finished with intricate glass beadwork, natural animal pelts, and highly engineered technical resins. These endearing characters arrive with humorous names, frequenting playful puns on notable figures and pop-culture icons.

Throughout their oeuvre, the duo employs structural systems drawn directly from nature and computational mathematics. Beginning with rudimentary forms, they apply precise algorithmic rules, adding clay, paint, wax, or beads in iterative steps to yield complex, self-organizing patterns. Over time, these rule-based processes have evolved from small-scale studio experiments into expansive, highly technical works.

Their signature “Accretion” series epitomizes this methodology. Inspired by organic growth phenomena like coral reefs, shelf fungi, and cave speleothems, the process began as a ceramic practice where brushstroke upon brushstroke of wet clay was meticulously applied to domestic vessels, building up rich, mottled textures. The artists have since scaled this systematic accumulation across media, translating it into large-scale paintings and heavy bronze casts.

The Haas Brothers’ exhibition, ”Mathemagical”, presents their most ambitious, algorithmically driven works to date. The show coincides with “Uncanny Valley”, their traveling mid-career museum survey, originating at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, before traveling to the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. “Mathemagical” explores the capacity of strict mathematical systems to evoke genuine awe, transforming raw data and logical algorithms into objects of transcendent fantasy.

In a new suite of algorithmic “Accretion Paintings”, the artists begin with nostalgic landscape scenes, then overlay them with paint thickened by a custom acrylic medium engineered alongside Golden Artist Colors. Application follows a reaction-diffusion equation—the mathematical principle governing cell division and the biological patterning of animal spots and stripes. Guided by a strict color palette, layer upon layer of paint organically abstracts the underlying composition.

The artists have also applied the Accretion process to reimagine their iconic “Beasts”, which serve as anthropomorphic portraits of friends and family. Utilizing a ceramic coil-based wax building technique derived from early bronze sculptures, wax is slowly built up to simulate dense fur before being cast in bronze and finished with deep, nuanced patinas. This creates the most sculpturally sophisticated evolution of the series yet.

Serving as the centerpiece of “Mathemagical”, “The Peach Tree synthesizes a decade of systematic and technical innovation into a single monumental work. The carved stone base stands as a dual tribute to their ongoing stonework and their stonemason father, supporting a bronze trunk textured with the signature wax-layering Accretion process. Its canopy features hand-beaded Venetian glass foliage created according to algorithmic rules for perfect leaf geometry, executed by the Haas Sisters of Lost Hills—a community of women from an agricultural town in central California with whom the artists have built a long-term social practice that creates local economic opportunity. Finally, the tree is crowned with intricately blown-glass peaches illuminated from within, casting a soft, warm glow across the surrounding environment.

Photo: Haas Brothers, Stones in a Jungle Lake, 2026, Acrylic medium and paint on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 182.9 x 182.9 cm, © Haas Brothers, Courtesy the artists and Boesky Gallery

Info: Boesky Gallery, 509 West 24th Street, New York, NY, USA, Duration: 10/9-17/10/2026, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00, https://marianneboeskygallery.com/