Processing and Creating Access to the Szeemann Archive

FAIN: PW-51045-12

Getty Publications (Los Angeles, CA 90049-1740)
Andra Darlington (Project Director: July 2011 to September 2014)

The arrangement and description, re-housing, and partial digitization of up to 900 linear feet of the Harald Szeemann Papers, which comprise 3,000 artist files, over 200 project files, and 750 videos documenting the history of 20th-century art and visual culture.

This application seeks support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to process the two largest and most significant series in the recently acquired Harald Szeemann Papers (circa 1880-2005). The Szeemann archive is one of the principal privately assembled collections related to 20th-century art and visual culture in the world, and his series of project files and artist files are the heart of the archive. The proposed project will arrange, preserve, describe, and partially digitize the project files and artist files, and make them freely accessible to scholars, researchers, curators, artists, and the interested public. Together these two series comprise 900 linear feet of extensive correspondence, notes, unique drawings, rare posters, video artworks, artists' books, limited-edition items by noted visual, literary, and performance artists, and extensive documentation of Szeemann's exhibitions and other projects, both realized and unrealized.

Associated Products

Treasures from the Vault: Harald Szeemann's "Project Files" (Blog Post)
Title: Treasures from the Vault: Harald Szeemann's "Project Files"
Author: Melanie Tran
Abstract: This blog post explores how the pioneering curator, Harald Szeemann, revitalized and expanded the Venice Biennale. As an independent curator, nurturer of the arts, and staunch advocate of new artists, Szeemann left an enormous legacy—both intellectual and physical, that is of tremendous interest to scholars, researchers and the general public nationally and globally. The Szeemann archive, held by the Getty Research Library is currently being processed by special collections catalogers at the Getty Research Institute which was made possible in part through support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The “Project files” series will be the first to be catalogued and made publically available. Szeemann is known for his innovative and thought- provoking exhibitions held many influential positions during his career, including his appointment as the Visual Arts Director of La Biennale di Venezia for 1999 and 200—the only person with the distinction of holding this position for more than one term. Most notably, he became the first curator to include multiple contemporary Chinese artists in a traditionally Western-oriented institution. He also juxtaposed more well-known artists with up-and-coming ones in the same spaces. Szeemann envisioned a space that would blur traditional boundaries, and preferred the international show to be more of a “melting pot,” while respecting the effect of the Biennale to reinforce national identities.
Date: 05/31/2013
Primary URL: http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/treasures-from-the-vault-harald-szeemanns-project-files/
Primary URL Description: This URL links to "The Getty Iris" an online Getty magazine that features articles on "Treasures from the Vault," such as this blog article "Harald Szeemann’s Project Files," which is directly accessible though this link.

Treasures from the Vault: Harald Szeemann, From Vision to Nail (Blog Post)
Title: Treasures from the Vault: Harald Szeemann, From Vision to Nail
Author: Pietro Rigolo
Abstract: This blog post explores the curatorial vision of Harald Szeemann, who in 1969 declared his independence. Resigning from the Kunsthalle Bern, the curator decided to pursue an independent career outside of traditional art institutions and to personally assume every single decision and risk in his projects, from the very first concept to the final dismantling of the exhibition. He chose “From Vision to Nail” as one of the mottos for his newly established Agency for Intellectual Guest Labor, a one-man enterprise and a conceptual tool to identify his activity in the economic, political, and artistic fields. “From Vision to Nail” could be easily applied as a catchphrase to the main section of Szeemann’s archive, the Project Files, which are now open for research at the Getty Research Institute. The archive consisting of more than 500 boxes containing thousands of papers, documents the curatorial process of his more than 150 exhibitions, spanning a nearly 50-year career. Previously scattered between Bern and Ticino, Switzerland, in the mid-1980s the archive was permanently housed on two floors of a former watch factory in Maggia, Switzerland. The Szeemann archive is now located in the United States, through recent acquisition by the Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles, CA). Accelerated public access to the Project Files for new scholarship, research, and artistic production has been made possible through generous funding support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
Date: 06/26/2013
Primary URL: http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/treasures-from-the-vault-harald-szeemann-from-vision-to-nail/
Primary URL Description: This URL links to "The Getty Iris" an online Getty magazine that features articles on "Treasures from the Vault," such as this blog article "Harald Szeemann, From Vision to Nail," which is directly accessible though this link.

Harald Szeemann Archive and Library (Web Resource)
Title: Harald Szeemann Archive and Library
Author: Getty Research Institute
Abstract: This web resource provides descriptive information regarding the Harald Szeemann Archive and Library, held by the Getty Research Institute, which spans the period 1836-2010—with the bulk of materials from the period 1957-2005. This webpage is located within the Getty Research Institute’s website. It incorporates links to: Szeemann archive materials such as digitized images, series I project files (including exhibition files), and series IV photographs; books and journals on the life and work of Szeemann that are currently available in the Getty Research Library; a Getty webpage about the NEH funded “Processing and Creating Access to the Szeemann Archive”; and, links to other Harald Szeemann information that provides additional insider perspective.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: http://www.getty.edu/research/institute/development_partnerships/2012_neh_szeemann.html
Primary URL Description: This URL links the viewer to a descriptive webpage about the Harald Szeemann Archive and Library, held by the Getty Research Library. The webpage also provides access links to archival materials and more. This webpage was created as part of the Getty Research Institute website.

Reconsidering Harald Szeemann (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Reconsidering Harald Szeemann
Author: Getty Research Institute (GRI)
Abstract: This panel "Reconsidering Harald Szeemann" moderated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, guest scholar at the Getty Research Institute (GRI), artistic director of dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), and curator of the 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015), explored the work and legacy of Swiss curator Harald Szeemann (1933–2005), whose provocative and groundbreaking exhibitions have exerted a lasting influence on the field of contemporary art and exhibition-making. Much of Szeemann’s practice was centered around close collaborative relationships with more than 20,000 artists and a sweeping global vision of culture, that influenced the development of more than 200 exhibitions over a career that spanned nearly 50 years. Many projects, such as When Attitudes Become Form in 1969 and documenta 5 in 1972, were controversial and harshly criticized, but over time they have become landmark exhibitions of their era. The Harald Szeemann Archive and Library was acquired by the Getty Research Library in 2011, that now provides free public access to this immense resource of research materials chronicling Szeemann’s work and practice though meticulously preserved documents, photographs, and other items. Accelerated Szeemann archive processing and public access was made possible through this generous NEH-HCRR grant.
Date Range: 5/28/2015
Location: The Getty Center, Museum Lecture Hall, Los Angeles, CA
Primary URL: http://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/events/reconsidering_szeemann.html
Primary URL Description: This URL links to a Getty Research Institute webpage, located on the Getty website, that documents the public panel event “Reconsidering Harald Szeemann.”

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