ALEX HAAS

Born in New York (United States), 1963
Lives & works in New York (United States)
Very active in: 90s, 2000s, Current decade

Representative galleries:
Estiarte

More links:

Video Art Works

Observations # 1 (2006)



Alex Haas has spent the past fifteen years developing a fully integrated approach to the arts and is equally vested in music, photography and multimedia. Haas' recent photographic work, and its accompanying video and soundscape, reveal his first true synthesis of these multiple disciplines. Haas' work, which is influenced by his own forays into electronic and ambient music, evokes the powerful color imagery of Rothko, but with a precise, digital feel. The artist's photographic abstractions use color and space to create a vast, suspended panorama that seems to float and expand on the print.

Haas was born in New York in 1963, the son of world-renowned Austrian photographer Ernst Haas. The artist grew up in both Europe and the United States, infused with the spirit of photojournalism and a passion for modern art. During his teens, Haas became fascinated with the blossoming European electronic music scene of the late seventies. His musical world was revolutionized upon discovering the pioneering ambient works of Brian Eno whom he met in New York in 1980 and, more recently, worked with on U2's "All That You Can't Leave Behind."

Haas has studied computer music at MIT and guitar/composition at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved back to New York City in 1982 to work at the famed Power Station Recording Studio and to start building a career in music engineering/production. During the last two decades, Haas is credited on dozens of influential albums by such seminal artists as Bill Laswell, Eric Clapton, Madonna, Kronos Quartet, Talking Heads and James.

A talented musician in his own right, Haas co-founded Cypher 7 in 1996, an ambient/alternative group whose three widely acclaimed albums (produced and released by Bill Laswell) continue to influence new artists. In 2000 recorded and released his first solo album, Buildings, on his own Sonicontinuum label.