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The Haas Brothers On Finding Magic in Math at Marianne Boesky

In “Mathemagical,” twin brothers Niki and Simon Haas trace the systems, materials and imagination behind their fantastical creations and ongoing search for beauty.

Whimsical and irresistibly cute, the Haas Brothers’ fantastical creatures are among the few ingeniously crafted characters to have captured audiences both in the art world and outside of it without becoming a commercial franchise. Their works move fluidly between art and design, often abandoning function altogether to become purely sculptural, engaging freely and imaginatively with materiality. Their latest exhibition, “Mathemagical” at Marianne Boesky Gallery, brings into focus two seemingly opposite but interdependent forces that have long animated their exuberant universe. On one side is the imaginative intuition that produces unlikely hybrids and fantastical forms; on the other, the engineering, repetition and mathematical systems that allow those forms to materialize.

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The twin brothers have often described their work as a kind of Trojan horse, in which the ridiculous, sexual or cartoonish expression gets people laughing, which lowers their defenses and opens the door to a more serious exchange. When Observer catches up with the duo after the opening of “Mathemagical,” Simon Haas explains that the creatures in the show began to emerge after Niki returned from Iceland with some sheepskins he bought at a gas station. “We had this studio, and they were just sitting there,” Niki Haas recalls. “I was attracted to them, but we didn’t really know what to do with them for a long time.”

"Mathemagical" Artists: The Haas Brothers Venue: Marianne Boesky Gallery Address: 509 W 24th St, New York, NY Through: October 17, 2026

They initially imagined a beast chair. “It was supposed to be a joke version of one of those big, lion-footed chairs you might find in some royal hall,” Niki continues. Gradually, the forms shed their functional imperative and became characters. “We became interested in the idea that you can communicate so much personality with very little information. There’s beauty in that blank space, in the lack of information.” Viewers and collectors began projecting onto the works, treating them almost like pets—naming them and forming personal relationships with them. “We became very interested in that space where the collector or viewer decides what the object means to them,” Niki continues, adding that there was something beautiful and magical in that. “It’s amazing how removing features can make something more relatable. It gives the viewer an opportunity to project rather than force-feeding them all the information,” Simon adds.

Here he draws an intriguing parallel with robots and the so-called uncanny valley that inspired the title of their first major mid-career survey. “Uncanny Valley” debuted at Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in 2025 before traveling to the Museum of Arts and Design in New York; it is on view at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin through Jan. 17, 2027, and........

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