With a main essay by Christian Rattemeyer, texts from 1969 by Wim Beeren, Charles Harrison, Harald Szeemann and Tommaso Trini, additional new commissions from Claudia Di Lecce and Steven ten Thije, interviews with artists Marinus Boezem, Jan Dibbets, Ger van Elk, Piero Gilardi and Richard Serra and an introduction by Teresa Gleadowe
The ‘new art’ of the late 1960s was shown in two landmark exhibitions in 1969: ‘Op Losse Schroeven’ and ‘When Attitudes Become Form’. This book reveals how each brought together Arte Povera, Anti-Form, Conceptual and Land art, whilst challenging such categories and introducing innovative curatorial strategies. Christian Rattemeyer offers a rich comparative analysis of the two exhibitions, exploring the related but differing approaches of the two curators - Wim Beeren and Harald Szeemann - in the two distinct institutional settings of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Kunsthalle Bern. Numerous installation photographs enable a virtual ‘walk through’ of each exhibition, while meticulous chronologies detail the negotiations that shaped them. Crucial texts from the time are complemented by new research and recent interviews with participating artists.
This book inaugurates the Exhibition Histories series, which investigates exhibitions that have shaped the way contemporary art is experienced, made and discussed.
The book launched in November-December 2010 in New York, London and Amsterdam. The New York launch included a conversation between Lawrence Weiner, Rafael Ferrer and Keith Sonnier, moderated by Christian Rattemeyer.
Published by Afterall Books in association with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2010. Distributed by Koenig Books, London.