Harald Szeemann - museum of obsessions

Harald Szeemann is associated with some of the most important artistic developments of the postwar era.

A passionateadvocate 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 hissweeping vision of contemporary culture. Szeemann once stated that his goal as an exhibition maker was to create a "Museum of Obsessions." This richlyillustrated volume is a virtual collection catalogue for that imaginary institution, tracing the evolution of his curatorialmethod through the materials he collected and produced while researching and organising his exhibitions, includingletters, 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 heorganized the seminal Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form (1969); to documenta 5 (1972) and the intenselypersonal exhibition he staged in his own apartment using the belongings of his hairdresser grandfather (1974); to hisreinvention 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Its morethan 350 illustrations include previously unpublished installation photographs and exhibition documents as well as manyother materials from the curator's archive.