Flashback to Switzerland, 1969: the Swiss art historian and curator Harald Szeemann is curating the exhibition Live in Your Head. When Attitude Becomes Form with a group of young, revolutionary artists in Bern Kunsthalle, a moment that went down in history for Szeemann’s new and radical approach to the exhibition practice as a linguistic medium. Fast forward to Venice and the crowded preview days of the Biennale: Fondazione Prada’s Ca Corner della Regina is presenting When Attitude Becomes Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013, an exhibition curated by Germano Celant in dialogue with Thomas Demand and Rem Koolhaas, as an reconstruction of the original show.
Revisiting the Post-pop and Post-minimal art of the time; from Conceptual art to Arte Povera and Land art, the show at Fondazione Prada is bringing together the original works presented at the Kunsthalle by artist legends such as Claes Oldenburg, Bruce Nauman, Eva Hesse, Joseph Beuys, Daniel Buren, Walter De Maria, Sol LeWitt and Lawrence Weiner. Despite (or perhaps because of) the two-hour-long queue to enter the Fondazione, the show turned out to be one of the absolute must-sees during the preview week.
Similar to how a generation of young artist occupied the Bern Kunsthalle, the richly ornamented Venetian palazzo and head quarter of Fondazione Prada has in turn been invaded by the Kunsthalle’s 20th century modernist rooms. White plaster walls have been installed inside the 18th century building, and the works have been placed in the exact same order as in the original exhibition. The project is based on Fondazione Prada’s and the Getty Research Institute’s research and study of documents, letters and photographs related to Szeemann and the 1969 show, and an analysis of over 1000 photographs made it possible to identify the works of the exhibition, and to make a precise mapping of what happened in Bern. The result is pretty breathtaking.
Thanks to plenty of archive material and study centers, visitors can experience and analyze the show from the 1969 version until its transformed, present state. A program including meetings, lectures, live concerts and performances will also be accompanying the exhibition during its five-month run. When in Venice, don’t miss out on this gem.
When Attitude Becomes Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013 is on view at Fondazione Prada between 1 June and 3 November 2013.
Helena Nilsson Strängberg
