The Haas Brothers’ Wild, Wonderful, Weird World

By Janet Mercel on 05.05.26

There are surely many things that make Nikolai (Niki) and Simon Haas‘ artistic partnership work so well. At the opening of Uncanny Valley at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in Columbus Circle, you could observe firsthand one of their biggest strengths: they’re two halves of the same brain.

“We fill in what the other isn’t doing.” 

“We’re used to finishing each other’s sentences.”

Which they continued to do for the duration of their lecture discussing their art practice, sometimes mid-thought, sometimes mid-word. Imagine the advantage any artist would have if you took one person’s precision, material logic, and systems-person instinct, and another’s emotion-driven myth making and cartoonery and channeled them both into a single-minded body of work. And on your off days, you have someone to pull you through to the other side, or pick up your slack.

The Haas Brothers’ work is the result of two strong, separate, and deeply overlapping skill sets. “It starts with the two of us, gossiping, when no one talks to us,” Niki describes solo days in their Los Angeles studio. They privately brainstorm, marinate, and — one gets the sense — leave the earth for a little while.

When they switch roles, there can be brief chaos. Niki recalls a time when he had to make phone calls for something as a teenager. “I sat in the back, he was driving. I was shaking because Simon always made the calls.”

Uncanny Valley is a mid-career survey and their largest showing of work so far, traces a decade of mind melding from 2014 to 2025, curated into one wonderland of early cast bronze experiments, ceiling-height furry beasts, alien-esque hand beaded masterscapes, and lots of elegant penis humor (they are boy twins, after all). With names like “Titty Slickers,” “Half-Chubba Gump,” “Mary Tyler Spore,” and “Long Hanging Dong.”

For anyone who was lucky enough to wander Ferngully, their show that debuted at The Bass Museum for Art Basel 2018, the exhibition expands the interactive playland quality with video installations, process vignettes, and 85 works across two whole floors of MAD.

From their first 2012 New York show: the Hematite vases, bronze sculptures made by pouring plaster into pantyhose, spilling into suggestive folds. “One of the first things we made,” Simon says. “We were pretty obsessed with sex,” Niki adds. 

The Hex series, early furniture work with bronze tiles, hairy hides and hooved legs that caught the attention of Versace, their “big break.” The multi-functional pieces eventually gave birth to their ongoing Beasts — beloved fantastical creatures of all shapes and sizes and origin stories. Then there’s Accretions, hand-layered coral-like vases. “If you brush a ceramic vessel with wet clay over and over, as you add more, the clay deposits and it starts to grow.”

Alongside Uncanny Valley, The Strawberry Tree currently lives at Marianne Boesky Gallery, who has repped them since 2018. (“Marianne is the best gallerist in the world.”) A mammoth cast bronze tree adorned with antique Venetian bead foliage and glowing, blown-glass strawberries, you’ll have to ask for it — it’s tucked majestically, secretly near the back of the gallery, like a door into another world, and definitely one you’ll want to enter.

A lot of who the Haas brothers  are traces back to Austin — the brothers’ inspiration has been outsized and dreamlike since childhood. They grew up drinking in their surroundings, when whimsical sculptures on storefronts and businesses were part of the local landscape. One image in particular stuck in their collective memory: an enormous grocery montage of cheese, a fish and produce, rendered surrealist by the act of sticking it on the rooftop of Whole Foods. Their father was a sculptor and stonemason; an early comfort with his materials means they’re not afraid of experimenting, “messing around with bronze, glass, brass.” 

Before the Haas brothers became Wonka/Wharhol Factory-worthy superstars, their semi-functional objects were difficult for the art and design markets to place. “The Design Miami vetting committee wasn’t loving it. If we’re not Art Basel or Design Miami, how do we keep this going?” 

Beasts helped them find their own niche and develop a serious following. Having grown up in Texas around taxidermy, they understand instinctively why the uncanny works and why it doesn’t. If something is too lifelike, they explain, people don’t like it.

“When you add humor, or cuteness, or prettiness,” Simon says,  “the empathy mechanism kicks in.” 

“There’s a function to cuteness in nature,” Niki adds. “Babies and puppies are difficult but you want to take care of them. We design for an emotion we want to elicit or to make someone laugh.”

Haas Brothers: Uncanny Valley is on view April 11 through August 16 at 2 Columbus Circle.

The Strawberry Tree is on view at Marianne Boesky Gallery, 507 West 24th Street.

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