Harald Szeemann
Harald Szeemann ( born June 11, 1933 Bern, † 18 February 2005 in Tegna in Ticino ) was a Swiss museum director, curator and curator of international standing.
- 5.1 Agency for Spiritual Guest Work and Museum of Obsessions
- 5.2 Documenta 5, 1972
- 5.3 bachelor machines / Les Machines Célibataires, 1975
- 5.4 Biennale di Venezia, 1980
- Accademia di Architettura 5.5, 1996
- 5.6 Biennale di Venezia, 1999 and 2001
- 6.1 The Hang zum Gesamtkunstwerk, 1983
- 6.2 Joseph Beuys, 1993-1994
Family
Harald ( Harry) Szeemann came from an Austro-Hungarian family. His grandfather Etienne Szeemann (1873-1971), a polyglot master hairdresser, worked in Budapest, Vienna and Carlsbad. As a hairdresser ship he came to Cape Town and finally to London. Here the father of Harald Szeemann was born in 1905. 1906 attracted his grandparents with their children to Bern. In 1919, she received Swiss citizenship. His grandfather had been acquainted with Karl Ludwig Nessler, inventor of the permanent wave.
Life
During his high school years, Harald Szeemann was interested in music, visual arts and literature. After graduation he studied from 1953 to 1960 art history, archeology and journalism at the University of Bern and at the Institut d' Art et d' Histoire of the Sorbonne. Already during his studies he played in Bern in an ensemble theater. In 1956, Szeemann a one-man theater, where he was lead actor, lyricist and stage in a person. To earn his living, he worked as a graphic designer in an advertising agency and was a painter and writer. In 1957 at the same time each an offer from Leonard Steckel for an engagement at the Schauspielhaus Zurich and Franz Meyer, the director of the Kunsthalle Bern, on the organization of the exhibition " Seated Painters - Malende poet " at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen. Szeemann opted for the exhibition, which he dedicated to Hugo Ball. 1958 married Harald Szeemann and the Parisian Françoise Bonnefoy. From his first marriage come Jérôme Patrice (* 1959) and Valére Claude ( b. 1964 ).
1960 doctorate Harald Szeemann at the University of Bern with magna cum laude on the beginnings of modern book illustration of the Nabis (and their contacts with Revue Blanche, Théâtre de l'Oeuvre, Alfred Jarry, Ambroise Vollard ). In the same year he moved with his family to Paris, where he worked at the National Library, and had contacts with Jean Tinguely and Constantin Brâncuşi. During his stay in Paris he received from Arnold Rüdlinger, former director of the Kunsthalle Bern, the recommendation to apply as the successor of Franz Meyer. Szeemann was the Board of Trustees - are co-owners of 51% Bernese Artists - elected director of the Kunsthalle Bern in 1961. With 27 years Szeemann was the youngest curator of an internationally known arts institution in his choice. The Kunsthalle he directed until 1969.
Szeemann was married in second marriage with the artist Ingeborg Lüscher, whom he had met in 1972 during the Documenta 5 in Kassel. In 1974 he moved from Berne to Civitanova Marche ( Italy) on. In 1975, their daughter Una Alja, now artist, was born. 1978 settled the family in the village Tegna in Ticino, Switzerland.
Quote
" U weigh the i Säg forever, so anunfürsich the Uufgaab uh Usschtellige zmache and aes Läbe long zverbringe with de Chünschtler where the ideal Gsell shaft si for mi - where mes always HäT with eim ztüe and thus quasi Gsell shaft to us Additione vo Begägnige zammesätzt, Mueß me with Häärz Läbe. "
Curatorial work in the Kunsthalle Bern
Artistry of the mentally ill - Art Brut - Insania Pingens, 1963
The works were originally collected by Hans Prinzhorn as an art of mental patients in university hospitals in Bern, Lausanne and Paris. For works of the Prinzhorn Collection, it was the first show after the end of the Nazi era. Szeemann - director of the Kunsthalle and creators of the show - showed the works, with the intention that the mental production for remotely related, not outside, but within society are. This brought Szeemann the international discourse of high art and " art of the insane " ( Art Brut ) in motion.
Wrapped Kunsthalle Bern, 1967-1968
Christo and Jeanne- Claude received from Szeemann the opportunity to pack their first buildings: the Kunsthalle Bern.
When Attitudes Become Form, 1969
With the exhibition often described as legendary "Live in Your Head: When Attitudes become Form" ( When Attitudes Become form) with the subtitle "Works - Concepts - Processes - Situations - Information" trod Szeemann a new form of staging. In this exhibition was not chronologically or thematically ordered presentation in the foreground. The works of contemporary artists, the way environment and happening included new art forms such as installation, country, stepped through the concept of the curator in an exciting dialogue. Many works were only "on site" at the museum. Szeemanns claim was " ... against the dominance of Tachism and geometric art new artistic forms " to show, " which arose from no preconceived artistic opinions, but from the experience of the artistic process. " In the exhibition catalog with the full title " Live in your head. When Attitudes Become Form. Works -Concepts - Processes - Situations - Information. When Attitudes Become form. Art concepts operations situations information " were presented a total of 69 artists featured in the exhibition, however, for technical reasons, only the works of 40 artists.
He worked in " accordance with the artists of his generation parallel to the extension of the concept of art new forms of presentation. Szeemann gathered in his exhibition of European and American artists and the latest generation of artists with new names such as Richard Serra, Robert Morris, Michael Heizer, Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman, Joseph Beuys, Mario Merz, Richard Artschwager and Lawrence Weiner, whose work in Bern place emerged ". Among the artists represented also included Jannis Kounellis, Reiner Ruth Beck and Sarkis Zabunyan. The exhibition then traveled by Kunsthalle Bern to the Museum Haus Lange in Krefeld and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. The exhibition When Attitudes become form led to an estrangement with the Board of Trustees of the Art Gallery, the denied him a subsequent exhibition of works by Joseph Beuys: Szeemann announced.
Free curatorial work
Agency for Spiritual Guest Work and Museum of Obsessions
Both institutions founded Szeemann after his departure from the Kunsthalle Bern as productive concepts and tools in his imagination. The Agency for spiritual guest work produced the exhibition " bachelor machines / Les Machines Célibataire " and helped him to survive the Documenta 5. The Museum of Obsessions Szeemann invented by the Documentation to give his agency a working direction in which specific exhibition projects relate to each other.
Documenta 5, 1972
Szeemann was the youngest director of a Documenta in Kassel Documenta 5, entitled " Survey of reality - imagery " is considered by many as the most important so far. Szeemann conceived the event as an event for 100 days: Consequently, he invited the artists to not only to show paintings and sculptures, but also performances and " happenings". Szeemann broke with the curatorial convention to select all the works in detail. Instead, he gave artists the opportunity to produce free for a particular situation. He also relativized the concept of art by he included " non-artistic imagery ": Artistry of the mentally ill, imagery and piety, social iconography (banknotes, title pages of the magazine Der Spiegel, Political propaganda, advertising), science fiction and utopia.
Bachelor machines / Les Machines Célibataires, 1975
The exhibition traveled to nine venues in Europe, including the Venice Biennale, the Museum of the 20th century ( now the Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation ) in Vienna and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
The exhibition met the spirit of the times and was a visionary, because they led on the myth of the bachelor machine in intellectual history backgrounds of technical and social upheaval, which continue to be effective among other things, as digitization until today (see " Cyberspace and bachelor machines " in Ars Electronica, ARTificial Intelligence & ARTificial ART).
Biennale di Venezia, 1980
Szeemann co-sponsored and introduced the exhibitions " Aperto " for young artists.
Accademia di Architettura, 1996
The Faculty of Architecture, Accademia di Architettura, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI ), the first University of Italian Switzerland, has been shaped by Szeemann during the following six founding years.
Biennale di Venezia, 1999 and 2001
Szeemann was director of the division " Visual Arts " of the 48th and 49th Venice Biennale (1998-2002). He expanded the exhibition space by vacant industrial sites and abolished the general theme and the age restriction.
Kunsthaus Zurich
Szeemann was since 1981 " permanent freelancer for the Kunsthaus Zurich ."
The Hang zum Gesamtkunstwerk, 1983
The now famous exhibition conceived for Kunsthaus Zurich Szeemann, she was then in the museum of the 20th century in Vienna, shown at the Kunsthalle Dusseldorf / Art Association of the Rhineland and Westphalia in Dusseldorf and 1984 in Berlin. In Zurich it was opened on February 11, 1983, almost exactly to Richard Wagner's 100th anniversary, which is considered the founder of the musical Gesamtkunstwerk. In the exhibition, more than 300 objects, architectural models, scores, drawings and paintings were assembled, representing as total works of art, European utopias from 1790 until today. Szeemann wanted the exhibits are not limited to their aesthetic effect, but with them " a transformation of social reality to a renewed society " show.
Szeemann presented, among others, the Merzbau of Kurt Schwitters, reconstructed from the Swiss set designer Peter bite Egger, the Goetheanum in Dornach with various exhibits and models, the Sagrada Família by Antoni Gaudí, which ultimately utopian Church of the Holy Family in Barcelona, Monte Verità in Ascona, but also Anselm Kiefer mythological allegories ago. " ... An exhibition strategy that filed the exhibits in your cultural criticism, philosophical and religious sense context, made these Zürcher show this Tenzenz ( Gesamtkunstwerk ) in the entire spectrum of visible and thus laid a deep current of modern art development free ...".
Joseph Beuys, 1993-1994
Designed for the Kunsthaus Zurich and organized Szeemann a retrospective of the work of Joseph Beuys, which was held on 26 November 1993 to 20 February 1994. Subsequent exhibition venues were the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid and other curatorial care, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
Exhibitions (selection)
Awards
Szeemann belonged since 1961 to the Collège de ' Pataphysique, since 1997 was a member of the Akademie der Künste (Berlin ) and the support of the Max Beckmann Prize. In April 2006 Szeemann posthumously received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Zurich.
Publications
- Museum of Obsessions. Merve Verlag, Berlin 1981, ISBN 978-3-88396-020-3
- Individual mythologies. Merve Verlag, Berlin, 1985, ISBN 978-3-88396-040-1
- Timeless in Time - The museum of obsessions. Lindinger and Schmid, Regensburg 1994, ISBN 3-929970-11-2
- When Attitudes Become Form - Live in Your Head, Kunsthalle Berne. 1969 ( Reprint 2006)
- Bachelor machines / Les machines Célibataires (ed. with Jean Clair ). Exhibition catalog, Alfieri, Venezia, 1975
- Happening & fluxus. Materials. ( with Hans Sohm ), Kölnischer Kunstverein. Cologne, 1970
Archive and Library
In 2011, the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles acquired the archive and the library of the curator. The Institute wants to set up a separate area of research is to deal with searching the area Kuratur.