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Independent Contemporary Art Curating:(Harold Szeemann)

AbstractThis paper aims to consider and examine the development of the independentcurator through the curatorial practice and exhibition making of HaroldSzeemann, who has been notably identified as the “first” independent art curator.My overall line of enquiry is to ask whether the independent curator needs to bemore creative, freethinking, opportunist and maverick in his curatorial practicethan the curator in an institution, and asking what are the issues to the practicein terms of creativity, sustainability and power.It is now widely accepted that the art history of the second half of the 20

C is nolonger a history of artworks but a history of exhibitions

. This history coincideswith the emergence of a new professional category that of the curator, thereforean analysis of the role, practice and status of the independent curator within thecontemporary art world, continues to be one of discussion and intrigue but also of some suspicion. The idea and role of an independent professional, can be seen asan entrepreneur, middleman, market trader, interloper, even trickster andmischief-maker. Walter Benjamin described a curator as being like a ‘smuggler’ and Felix Feneon that of a ‘catalyst’.An analysis of the ‘career’ and track record of independent curators shouldextract something of the inherent practice and Harold Szeemann; the Swisscurator is often regarded as the contemporary genitor of the genre.Exhibition making, either in galleries and museums or in non-traditional spaceshas become the forum in which the public experience art. Unless they are acollector and have their own personal museum, we see our art in these spaces.Exhibitions have become the medium through which most art becomes known.The public perception of a curator is someone who works as a custodian of acollection, usually in a museum or gallery. Someone who takes care of things,links things together, interprets things for the public, facilitating their knowledgeand experience. This type of curator still exists in most cities in the world but the

Derieux, Florence, Harald Szeemann: Individual Methodology. Zurich: JRP|Ringier Kunstverlag AG;2007. p 8.1

contemporary role requires media, communication and business skills as well ascreative and technical skills. The need to define the role of the curator isconstantly debated, the recent American magazine, ‘Art Lies’ declared ‘the deathof the curator’

; it was only a matter of time of its demise but this then gives wayto a new definition, a rethinking of the profession and practice.In 2005, the photographer Balthasar Burkhard recorded a series of black andwhite photographs of the archive of Harold Szeemann curatorial materials

. Hehad worked with Szeemann at the Kunsthalle in Bern as the photographer of theexhibitions that he curated. The archive photographs show intense shelving,stacking and some organisation of the documents that are created in exhibitionmaking. The materials look like they have been initially organised into cardboardboxes and given letters and numbers, in an attempt at some sort of method butin time the piles of books, catalogues, models and images, have become moreprecarious and chaotic. There are also the trophies of exhibition making in theartworld, the photos of the curator with art star colleagues, the tree of luggagetags from every airport in the world, collected and displayed, the mountainsculpture, gifted paintings and the quotes and statements hanging in lines fromthe ceiling. It looks like an art installation but it took nearly 50 years to make.The photographs show a passion, an intensity of doing and making thingshappen. Things must have happened to create such material. (as Dave Hickeystated, ‘somebody has to do something before we can do anything”

) They havethe obsessiveness of a fan, a lover of the medium, and the people in it. There aresimilar obsessions in rock music. We are in awe of the avid cataloguing of recordcollecting. From the documentation of DJ John Peel’s vast collection, the genrefascism of the characters in the Hollywood films ‘High Fidelity’ (Stephen Frears2000) and ‘Diner’ (Barry Levinson 1982), who know when someone has tamperedwith their system, to the documentary film, ‘Vinyl” (Alan Zweig 2000) whichtragically but humorously tries to get to the bottom of the obsession.Szeemann’s early curatorial activities were prodigious. He curated his firstexhibition, “Painters Poets/ Poets Painters”, at the Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen, in1957, at age 24. When he became the director of the Kunsthalle, Bern four years

Gupta, Anjali, ed. Death of the Curator, Art Lies, A Contemporary Art Quarterly, 2008; No.59.

Derieux, Florence,

Harald Szeemann: Individual Methodology

. Zurich: JRP|Ringier Kunstverlag AG;2007. p 32-38.

Marincola, Paula, ed. Curating Now: Imaginative Practice/Public Responsibility. Philadelphia, PA:Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative; 2001, p. 128.2

later, he completely transformed the institution, mounting twelve exhibitions ayear, culminating in the pivotal exhibition “Live In Your Head: When AttitudesBecome Form: Works-Concepts-Processes-Situations-Information”, in 1969. Thisexhibition exhibited works by 70 artists, including Joseph Beuys, Richard Serra,Eva Hesse, Lawrence Weiner, Richard Long, and Bruce Nauman, among manyothers.The adaptation of the institutional structure to the artists and their needs is oneof Szeemann’s major contributions. However, what was significant was thatSzeemann quickly came into conflict with the institutions, by taking risks.According to Szeemann the exhibition came about only because ‘people from thePhilip Morris company and the PR agency Ruder and Finn came to Bern and askedme if I would do a show of my own. They offered me money and total freedom”

.In the exhibition catalogue the company saw a clever marketing parallel withthere own policy, “as businessmen in tune with our times, we at Philip Morris arecommitted to support the experimental”

although they held off from sponsoringany further contemporary art exhibition for a while, probably due to the adverseSwiss and International press which followed the exhibition. Stunned by thenegative reaction to ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ from the governors of theKunsthalle Bern, Szeemann quit his job, and essence becoming the first “independent curator”. He immediately set up The Agency for Spiritual Guestworkand co-founded the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art(IKT) in 1969, curated ‘Happenings & Fluxus’ at the Kunstverein in Cologne in1970, and became the first artistic director of Documenta in 1972, reconceiving itas a 100-day event, which continues to today. Szeemann’s exhibition makingcontinued until his death in 2005, with further ground breaking exhibitions suchas ‘Bachelor Machines’ in 1975-77, ‘Monte Veritá’ (1978, 1983, 1987), initiatingthe first Aperto at the Venice Biennale (with Achille Bonito Oliva, 1980), ‘TheQuest for the Total Work of Art” in 1983-84, ‘Visionary Switzerland’ in 1991, theJoseph Beuys retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in 1993, ‘Austria in aLacework of Roses’ at the MAK Österreichisches Museum für angewandre Kunst,Vienna in 1996, and the Venice Biennale in 1999 and 2001.The decision to quit his job in the Kunsthalle was not just a risk in life and work,but also an important decision on the future of how future curators might work.By changing the conditions of the exhibition and acknowledging new artisticpractices, such as conceptual art, he considerably influenced the generation of

Obrist, Hans Ulrich,

A Brief History of Curating

. Dijon, Les Presses du Reel; 2008. p 86-87.

Ibid.3

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The idea and role of an independent professional, can be seen as an entrepreneur, middleman, market trader, interloper, even trickster and mischief-maker. Walter Benjamin described a curator as being like a ‘smuggler’ and Felix Feneon that of a ‘catalyst’.

reply08 / 31 / 2010