harald szeemann: biographical sketch

Lives in Ticino, Switzerland

1933
Harald Szeemann was born on 11 June in Bern (Switzerland).
He studied Art history, archaeology and journalism.

1957
First exhibition as a curator, at St Gallen (Switzerland): "Painters Poets / Poets Painters"

1961
Becomes the director of the Kunsthalle in Bern. It is here that he makes his name, organising almost a dozen exhibitions per year and turning this venerable institution into an obligatory stopping-off place for the new generation of European and American artists.

1969
"When Attitudes Become Form: Live In Your Head" has become a historical reference, presenting for the first time, in Europe, artists such as Joseph Beuys, Richard Serra and Lawrence Weiner.
With this exhibition, the process of creation is now recognised as a work of art.
Harald Szeemann becomes an independent curator.

1970
Organises "Happening and Fluxus" in Cologne. A large inventory of actions, environments and concerts, featuring Wolf Vostell, Allan Kaprow and George Maciunas, as well as the Viennese "Actionists", Robert Filliou and George Brecht.

1972
Appointed curator of Documenta 5 in Kassel, he revolutionises the concept. Conceived as a hundred-day event, he invites the artists (Joseph Beuys, Paul Thek, Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, Joan Jonas, Rebecca Horn...) to present not only paintings and sculptures, but also performances and "happenings".

1973
After the Documenta, it is the beginning of a somewhat difficult period; firstly for financial reasons, then because of legal wrangles with the local authorities in Kassel. Deprived of premises and credits, he decides to set up an imaginary museum: the "Museum of Obsessions". This is the fruit of a conceptual research effort, which, playing on transversal connections, circumvents the over-complacent approach to the great universal themes. In order to implement the concepts of the exhibitions of this imaginary museum, he creates the Agency of Spiritual Guestworks, which has an international dimension: "for spiritual work abroad".
Henceforth, his exhibitions are linked to one another, always taking up singular or universal themes in original ways.

1974
Experiments with his exhibition concepts, such as "Grand Father" (Bern), where, in his apartment, he presents hairdressing equipment that belonged to his grandfather, thus re-creating a "torture chamber in the service of beauty".

1975
Temporary show in the Museum of Obsessions: "Bachelor Machines" was mounted in a number of European capitals. It took on the appearance of an obsession peculiar to the single mind (Marcel Duchamp, postman Cheval), presupposing an interior world functioning in a closed-circuit mode.

1978
Organises a series of exhibitions, then successively creates a series of three museums (1978, 1983, 1987) on Monte Verità, a hill in the canton of Ticino.
This is a home for utopians, anarchists and eccentrics.
The "Monte Verità-Mountain of Truth" exhibition (Ascona) uses individual projects to present utopias of this ideal society.

1980
Creation of "Aperto", a section that presents the work of young artists in the framework of the Venice Biennial.

1981
Appointed independent curator at the Kunsthaus in Zürich, a position that he continues to occupy.

1983
"In Search Of Total Art Work" is an exhibition in which Harald Szeemann puts forward a vision of the history of art based on "intense intentions" rather than a history of masterpieces.

1986
As exhibition follows exhibition, he takes over unconventional premises, most frequently gigantic: former stables in Vienna, the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, the palace in the Retiro park in Madrid. The artists he invites set up dialogues between their works and the chosen exhibition spaces.

1988
"Zeitlos" (outside time) in Berlin.

1991
"Visionary Switzerland" is a thematic exhibition that shows, once again, Harald Szeemann's eclecticism: his research and encyclopaedic knowledge, which go beyond the strict field of contemporary art, his interest in the social and historical events that have fashioned our century. He has a marked taste for the mixing of genres, combining inventions, historical documents and art objects.

1992
Harald Szeemann is given the responsibility for the Swiss pavilion in the Universal Exposition in Seville. Ben exhibits his paintings: "Switzerland does not exist", and "I think therefore I Swiss".

1993
A "Joseph Beuys" retrospective is presented at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

1996
"Austria in a lacework of roses" is the occasion for Harald Szeemann to give prominence to his reflections on Austrian spirituality.

Today, Harald Szeemann divides his time between the Kunsthaus in Zürich, where he still holds the position of "independent curator", and his agency, which he calls "The Factory", in Ticino, the small Alpine village where he lives.