Exhibiting the New Art: 'Op Losse Schroeven' and 'When Attitudes Become Form' 1969

by Wim Bereen, Charles Harrison, Harald Szeemann

Afterall Books' new Exhibition Histories series responds to an increased interest in exhibition history with its inaugural volume on two of the most famous exhibitions of the 1960s: Wim Beeren's Op Losse Schroeven (Stedelijk Museum, 1969) and Harald Szeemann's When Attitudes Become Form (Kunsthalle Berne, also 1969). Installation photographs allow the reader to envision the exhibitions, and chronologies detail the negotiations that steered them. Also provided are reprinted reviews, bibliographies and texts from the exhibitions, newly commissioned essays and interviews with artists Marinus Boezem, Jan Dibbets, Ger van Elk, Piero Gilardi and Richard Serra, and curators Wim Bereen, Charles Harrison, Harald Szeemann and Tommaso Trini. This volume is produced by Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London in association with the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.

Genres: Art

280 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2011

Reviews

[Tegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This succeeded as an in-depth analysis of two European curators separately working towards the display of the idea of 'new' concept based art, with their exhibitions being one week apart. The inclusion of interviews with the artists and collaborators involved, along with diary entries and catalogue essays, offered insight into the time frame in which both curators planned for their similar exhibitions and when each curator 'discovers' one another.
It's interesting to see how the institutions, one a kunsthalle and one a respected museum, show the key differences of openness and tension in exhibiting such radical art for the time.