Three days with Harald Szeemann in Belgrade 


Harald Szeemann came to Belgrade for the opening of “Real Presence” in August 2001. In that moment, he was the artistic director of the Venice Biennial, one of the most important art manifestations in the world. 
“Real Presence” was the encounter that my mother, Biljana Tomić and I organised, inviting hundreds of young artists and art students from around the world to Belgrade. 
The city was awakening after ten years of civil wars that raged across the territory of the former Yugoslavia. We were euphoric and hopeful that the new century would finally bring something better than the decade we’d been through. 
To mark this “new beginning”, Biljana and I asked friends, artists who were teaching at art academies, to send us their students over... Round three hundred came, and for two weeks, they took over Belgrade and all its artistic and cultural spaces. 

Harald came for the opening and gave a lecture in a packed conference hall of the former Tito’s museum. 

During his stay in Belgrade, I conducted this interview, or rather, I recorded this recollection of his life and work. His successes and his failures, anecdotes and reflections, were for me the biggest boost of energy and confidence that, if you want it, you can achieve anything. 
Of course, even bigger boost was the awareness that Biljana and I managed to make this miracle, and organise something really unique: an encounter with hundreds of young artists whose ideas, actions and works created an incredible creative critical mass and whose collective energy contaminated us so much that we continued with “Real Presence” for ten years. This project was organised in a similar spirit to Szeemann’s “When Attitudes Become Form”; it was open, dynamic, performative, and offered a platform for more than 1,500 young artists, reuniting Belgrade with other cultural contexts worldwide. 

After talking with Harald, I decided to start the “Art Highlights” lecture series, which led me to encounter numerous curators, museum directors, artists, and creatives working at the highest level of the international art scene. It was the beginning of my research into what curating means, which eventually led me to research fashion curating, too. 

2001

HARALD SZEEMANN: I DO NOT EXPOSE, I DEPOSE

Dobrila Denegri: More than an interview in a classical sense, I would like our talk to emerge as a sort of portrait of you as a curator... so my first question would be about your beginnings. What made you choose this profession, and how did you get involved with art?

Harald Szeemann: My beginnings? That means I should start with my grandfather...

DD: Well... of course, if that’s where the story begins...

HS: I was born in 1933 as a Swiss of the first generation, since my grandfather's family came from Hungary and my grandmother's from Bohemia. My grandfather, one of the most famous hairstylists and barbers of his time, travelled widely across Europe and lived for a long time in London, where my father was born. Grandfather had most distinguished clients, such as Lenin and Mussolini... and he was in a position to influence our history... just one wrong gesture... and the 20th century would be something completely different. 
After a long period of moving and travelling, our family finally settled in Bern, this beautiful medieval Swiss city where I was born and grew up, and where I went to school. I started studying the history of art, but, in search of economic independence, I decided to go to Paris and work in the theatre. The ‘50s were the years of the Nouvelle Vague in Paris, and I was following everything passionately that was going on in cinema and art... watching films in the same cinemas with Godard and Truffaut... and meeting artists such as Jean Tingely and others of the same generation, hanging out with them. During the summer months, I was working in Zurich as a graphic designer, earning enough money to live there rather than in Paris for six months... well, maybe not enough to eat, but certainly enough for drink... 
In that period, I was acting in theatre, but soon enough I understood that I was able to make “one-man” shows, avoiding all difficulties of interpersonal relationships typical for theatre, and on the other hand, having freedom to do all by myself: screenplay, acting, directing, stage design, music... Just in time when I got a proposal to join the Vienna theatre, came an invitation from Franz Mayer from St. Gallen to take part as a curator in the organisation of the exhibition “Painters Poets/Poets Painters”, which was about double talent, and included artists from Michelangelo to contemporaries. It was 1957. This was a determining experience because I realised that preparation of the exhibition is as exciting as preparing a theatre piece, everything is concentrated in preparing for the opening/premiere, but then, once opened, the exhibition starts its own life, and there’s no need to come back and play the same role as in theatre. 
So... I could say that’s how I found my ideal expressive medium: an exhibition. And then, after the opening, if it was successful, you could remain secretly in the museum and make love with your beloved person... as a way of celebration. Today, it’s no longer possible... You have all those alarm systems... It’s so sad....

DD: Did you have “role models” at that time? Someone who was an inspiration to you?

HS:  The father of Dada, Hugo Ball. Just because of the incredible combination of ethics, poetry, rebellion and activism, which characterised his work, Ball was one of the models for me. In the exhibition I organised, I did my best to collect as much original material and writing as possible. I contacted everybody who knew him and who then took part in the manifestation, which consisted of different events: an exhibition, poetry readings, and so on... After that, I married a Parisian girl and had a son, Gerome, so I also decided to finish my art history studies. With incredible effort, I completed my studies in just two years, but even with a diploma, I didn’t have better prospects for living in Paris, so we moved back to Bern. 

DD: Not long after, you became director of Kunsthalle in Bern, where you organised numerous significant and innovative exhibitions, till “When Attitudes Become Form” in 1969...

HS: Yes, at just 27 years of age, I was elected to the board of Kunsthalle and remained in this position till 1969, being so for a long time the youngest museum director in the world. 
I didn’t want to make a museum a place for the consecration of art, but to transform it into an open, experimental space, laboratory... I was creating a particular and dynamic program, realising exhibitions of different conceptual directions, not just in the domain of visual arts, but also other disciplines: theatre, fashion, poetry, film...
I was following new or not yet well known movements and phenomena, such as Art Brut, constructive tendencies, optical and kinetic art, than American Pop Art, and later new art from middle of ‘60s (minimal, conceptual, land art, etc.), but at the same time I was making monographic exhibitions of a great artists from the avant-garde movements from the beginning of the 20th century, like Francis Picabia (in 1962, which means very early), and also to a contemporaries. In 1968. Christo had a chance to wrap up a museum for the first time, which was a world event and gave us great publicity, helping us organise “When Attitudes Become Form” in 1969.

DD: This exhibition represented in many ways a turning point in contemporary art in the second half of the century.  Could you tell me more about this exhibition... how you got the idea to realise it? And what were the consequences? 

HS: I was in the States in 1967 when you could already feel a deep moral crisis because of the war in Vietnam, and also the emergence of a different spirit between younger generations, some dissatisfaction and anger, which would culminate in ‘68 riots and student movement. I came up with a fantastic idea to gather all the artists whose work carried this new spirit, and I was also lucky to get sponsorship from Philip Morris, which was then trying to get closer to the arts. Because the exhibition was a big scandal, the person responsible for the sponsorship was removed from its position. But then, some years later, when it was already clear that the exhibition was a historical event and Philip Morris had had some bad experiences with other sponsorships, the same person got its job back. 
Even though I worked a lot on the choice and discussed with artists about the works they were going to exhibit, this exhibition was exceptional because it was totally open. The best thing was that everybody was working together, mixing work and interventions, which is only possible when artists are very young and full of hope and ambition. Already in 1980, when I was working again with all the same artists for the Biennial in Venice on a historical show about the ‘70s, each of them was insisting on autonomy of the work and wished to be the king of its own room. 
But this spirit of change and working with artists when they are young and at the very beginning is extremely important and related to this manifestation in Belgrade Real Presence. Only when artists are still full of hope, ambition, and a desire for affirmation can they collaborate, mix their works, and, in this case, create a new type of exhibition. 
But in ’69, this type of “experimental” show was too much for the Bern authorities, and it marked the end of my work at the Kunsthalle. 

DD: Could you explain better what you meant by “individual mythologies” of Documenta 5 in Kassel 1972?

HS: In 1970, I did an exhibition about Fluxus and Happening, because they were omitted from the exhibition in Bern, which I considered a historical mistake. At the same time, that was some general rehearsal for Documenta 5, since I got the proposal from Kassel to be curator, just because the Documenta 4, which took place in ’69, missed all that I showed in the When Attitudes... 
Of course, even if Fluxus and Happening were already established as historical movements, the exhibition raised a lot of scandal, and I understood that it’s necessary to create for Documenta a solid program that will consist of the exhibition and also of performances that can maintain media attention for 100 days. 
Previous editions of Documenta were based on a polarisation of two main styles in present art. I wanted to oppose these stylistic aspects. Individual mythologies were not a tendency nor a style, but, according to me, a natural human right. They represent an indication that an individual is capable of creating a territory regulated by their own rules of intuition and creativity, and of claiming it as a concrete world. 

DD: What was next?

HS: After I was involved in a manifestation as Documenta, which affects the entire art scene, I decided to make something very intimate: an exhibition about my grandfather.
I was especially moved by the fact that old ladies, his clients, who came to the opening, were waiting for grandpa to come out. 
The way I displayed the objects evoked his presence, even though he was no longer around. 
I understood that through an exhibition, you can touch immortality. 
This experience was very useful later, especially, for example, when I was working on the exhibition of Joseph Beuys. I was using the same principle as the artist “I do not expose, I depose”, which created a special atmosphere... and even his closest friends, such as Speck, were deeply moved... I saw tears in their eyes.
It is really possible to evoke a person's presence through an exhibition... of course, if you do it the right way.   

DD: The activity of an art historian is traditionally linked to a museum and to theoretical work. You introduced a new model of professional engagement as a “curator/critic in praxis”, which means in direct contact and work with artists; it also implies expression through exhibitions instead of the written text.   

HS: After Documenta 5 I decided not to be linked to institutions any more, but I claimed myself, in little bit ironical way, an institution, founding Agency for the Spiritual Guest-work, which was in function of visualisation of the Museum of Obsessions, the museum which can’t possibly exist, because it is based on obsession and intensity which can’t be fixed. 
As a freelance curator, I had to invent exhibitions that institutions cannot conceive. 
Exhibition is really an expressive medium, which I love very much, making me obsessed and forcing me to show things I haven't seen yet. 
But in the beginning, things were very difficult. I had to find financial support and take loans from banks, which would be paid to the museums just after the realisation of the exhibitions... but I forgot about the interest...
Also, there was always a taboo about how much a museum earns from an exhibition. Because I was working by the principle “from vision to nail”, which means to all the phases from concept to installation, I was asking how much they earn and then would ask a little bit less, avoiding behaving like a star who pretends to have a very high fee. Everything was always an experiment, and I took all the risks. 
The first big show I realised in this way was “Bachelor Machines” in 1975, in eight cities: Bern, Venice, Brussels, Düsseldorf, Paris, Malmö, Amsterdam, Vienna. Even though it was a repeat, it had such intensity that every time felt like a new adventure and excitement. 

 DD: You also invented the Aperto section for young artists within the Venice Biennial. This was really a moment of opening of this manifestation. 

HS: I was invited by Biennial to make a historical show about the art of the ‘70s, which I did, but I also understood that it’s necessary to make an exhibition which could be actual and contemporary. Just at this turn of the decade, art was changing radically, and I thought it made more sense to be open to what was coming. I threatened to resign, and the Venetian authorities released funds for Aperto ‘80, which I organised together with Achille Bonito Oliva. We showed young artists and those of the older generation who deserved attention. Unfortunately, in the next edition, Aperto became an exhibition curated by five curators featuring artists “under 35”. But age does not determine youth and freshness of the artist... for instance, Louise Bourgeois is 95, but she is still a young artist. 
That’s exactly why, in the '99s edition, I played with the title – “dAPERTtutto” – trying to reanimate this initial spirit. 

DD: There are many Biennials all over the world now... but one in Venice is the first one... so how is it to be Director for the Visual Arts of the oldest Biennial?
What was the challenge for you in this case?

HS: Today, there are 47 Biennials. So what I had to do was to give Venice, as a “mamma of all biennials”, new freshness and actuality. 
This I did first of all by expanding spaces, opening new spaces that were really extraordinary and fascinating, so that the exhibition became an adventure again. 
Then I showed, on the same level as others, artists from China, trying to avoid the usual “exotic” connotations. 
In this edition, I wanted to give the institution of Biennial another dimension, which is why the title is “Plateau of Humankind”. I had a feeling that the new century was bringing some different spirit in art, and that’s why I based my work on polarities: to artists like Beuys, who in the second half of the 20th century was creating a social utopia and to young ones who today are concentrated on the present and exploring more subjective content. So there are two approaches: ideology and direct contact. 
I also tried to create the possibility of integrating film, which till now has always had strict rules for its presentation, and which is at the point of a big change, mainly thanks to new technological devices such as the DVD. So for the first time, we had cinema directors like Atom Egoyan, Abbas Kiarostami and others exhibiting or collaborating with artists. 

DD: What will be your following projects after the biennial?

HS: I am planning one exhibition about Marcel Duchamp, another about Victor Hugo, and one about money and value... let me tell you about that. The main sponsor will be the Swiss National Bank, which supports the entire idea. Since Swiss gold is so famous all over the world, I imagined a totally golden pavilion from the outside, with all this gold on display for people to scratch; the more they scratch, the more they will be able to take home. Inside, in the central space, will be a machine that destroys hundreds of Swiss francs, which is quite an ordinary process, since money is always destroyed to maintain its value. Now, we have a problem: if you bring these pieces to a bank, it is obliged to give you new bills. So you can imagine how many complicated mechanisms we have involved here. Then we will have thematic sections related to the history of money, to art as the biggest archaic value, and one of the main exhibits will be of course, “Merda d’Artista” of Piero Manzoni, than one about different metaphors of money and circulation of money, than works of contemporary artists, such as Pipilotti Rist, Mona Hatoum and others, addressing this issue. We will also have reports from all leading stock exchanges, as well as a section on the dreams that money cannot buy. So I guess that today, the issue of money and value is of principal importance.
Besides this, I am also preparing an exhibition on the Balkans, titled “Blood and Honey”... 

Harald Szeemann, at the time, was Artistic Director and chief curator of the Venice Biennial (1998 – 2002)

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