Harald Szeemann | Grandfather: A Pioneer Like Us | Cultured

Jul 10 2019


Harald Szeemann Grandfather A Pioneer Like Us Swiss Institute Getty

Very few curators are as influential as Harald Szeemann and now the late innovator’s retrospective has finally arrived in New York as “Grandfather: A Pioneer Like Us,” a restaging of Szeemann’s 1972 exhibition. The curator had just finished Documenta 5 and graduated with no new prospects. His impulse was to turn inwards staging an encyclopedic exhibition of his grandfather, Etienne Szeemann, a hairdresser and wigmaker using his personal effects and tools. The groundbreaking show mapped out a new direction for curation where one could weave historical narratives about the art of collection itself. Now on view at Swiss Institute, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to relive the aha moment.

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