Harald Szeemann: Museum of Obsessions
Castello di Rivoli 2019
Italian translation of the exhibition catalogue by Scriptum
The exhibition, organized by the Getty Research Institute (GRI) in Los Angeles in collaboration with the Castello di Rivoli Research Institute (CRRI), is the first exhibition dedicated to the life and career of Harald Szeemann (Bern, 1933 – Tegna, Switzerland, 2005), to which we owe the birth of the figure of the curator in the late 60s and the conception of the exhibition as a creative expression and autonomous form of language. The exhibition path develops through a series of themes that give visitors a glimpse into the thought, the visions and the obsessions, the controversies and the polemics that have accompanied the human and professional affairs of the Swiss curator, presenting a precious selection of archival materials, photographic documentation and videos, and a selection of artworks that have marked out his most important exhibitions, including Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form (1969) and documenta 5 (1972), flanked by Grandfather: A Pioneer Like Us / Nonno: un pioniere come noi which reconstructs the first exhibition project of Szeemann after documenta 5 for which, in 1974, in his house in Bern, he retraced the life of his grandfather, the hairdresser Étienne “Stephan” Szeemann.