The well known independent curator Harald Szeeman passed away last Friday Feb 18 in Switzerland. See ArtForum News for details. Often a figure of much controversy, it is beyond doubt that his highly influential exhibitions - particularly 'When Attitudes Become Form' (1968) and Documenta 5 (1972) - laid much of the foundations for the kinds of exhibition models and curatorial formats we are so accustomed to today. Working with the then young generation of artists invloved in process, non-material practices or 'happenings', Szeemann's exhibitions were proposed more as laboratories or unfinished archives rather than as crisply sealed spaces. At Documenta 5 several artists and groups began to experiment with the then emerging technologies of video and telematics - you can see and read a little about 'telewissen. The Poeple's Documenta' project HERE. For a short but comprehensive biographical sketch of Harald Szeemann see this bio from the website of the Biennale de Lyon.
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