Harald Szeemann - Museum of Obsessions

'Replete with installation photography and more ephemera than you could fit into three lifetimes, this book does justice to a figure who expanded the field of curating to be a limitless means through which to re-envision what we consider art' - Elephant

A beautiful book examining the work of one of the most influential curators of recent times, Harald Szeemann 

Harald Szeemann is associated with some of the most important artistic developments of the postwar era. A passionate advocate of avant-garde movements like conceptualism and post-minimalism, he collaborated with artists such as JosephBeuys, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, and Cy Twombly, developing new ways of presenting art that reflected his sweeping vision of contemporary culture. Szeemann once stated that his goal as an exhibition maker was to create a "Museum of Obsessions." This richly illustrated companion book to an exhibition at the Getty Research Institute and Kunsthalle Bern is a virtual collection catalogue for that imaginary institution, tracing the evolution of his curatorial method through the materials he collected and produced while researching and organising his exhibitions, including letters, drawings, personal datebooks, installation plans, artists' books, posters, photographs, and handwritten notes.

This book documents all phases of Szeemann's career, from his early stint as director of the Kunsthalle Bern, where he organized the seminal Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form (1969); to documenta 5 (1972) and the intensely personal exhibition he staged in his own apartment using the belongings of his hairdresser grandfather (1974); to his reinvention as a freelance curator who realised projects on wide-ranging themes until his death in 2005. The book contains essays exploring Szeemann's curatorial approach as well as interviews with collaborators. Its more than 350 illustrations include previously unpublished installation photographs and exhibition documents as well as many other materials from the curator's archive.

Details

• Author: Glenn Phillips, Curator and head of modern and contemporary collections at the Getty Research Institute 
• Hardcover: 416 pages | 240 colour and 122 black and white illustrations
• Date published: April 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN: 978-1606065594
• Product Dimensions: 31.7 x 26.0 cm