Harald Szeemann, 1971

Exhibition: I want to leave a nice well-done child here (22 artists)
Bonython Art Gallery, Sydney
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Harald Szeeman was Director of the Kunsthalle, Bern, when Christo was invited to wrap it in 1968. It was also Szeeman who, in 1970, initiated the European tour of an exhibition documenting the ‘Wrapped Coast’. He had become clearly identified with the new movement in art ‘beyond the collectible dimension’. Szeeman was one of an emerging breed of European art-world professionals primarily concerned neither with the elaboration of art history, nor the connoisseurship of museum collections. His focus was ‘exhibition making’.
In 1969 Szeeman organised a highly influential exhibition whose title, ‘When attitudes become form’ captures a sense of the new focus on concepts and processes rather than purely on objects. In ‘The Australian’ (15 April 1971), he argued: “In Europe now, the art world is divided into two parts. One wants art works that are autonomous and explain themselves. The other is for making complex exhibitions, and putting art works in a state bigger than autonomous works… I’m interested in the art of concept, change, permanence, environments and attitudes rather than objects. ‘Szeeman’s’ ideas resonated with Kaldor’s own sensibility and with his experience of the ‘Wrapped Coast’. They were framed in terms of a commitment to internationalism and recognition of ‘the precedence of sculpture over painting as an area for potential action’.