Jun 28 2019
Curator Talk | Glenn Phillips on Harald Szeemann and Grandfather: A Pioneer Like Us
Fri | 7PM
Grandfather: A Pioneer Like Us presents a meticulous reconstruction of Harald Szeemann’s 1974 exhibition, which was originally presented in his apartment in Bern, Switzerland. The exhibition included more than 1,000 objects, most of which were later distributed, unidentified, throughout Szeemann’s massive archive in Maggia, Switzerland. Glenn Phillips will provide an overview of Szeemann’s career and archive, and discuss the seven-year process of reconstructing the Grandfather exhibition.
Please RSVP to rsvp@swissinstitute.net. Please note: events at Swiss Institute are limited capacity, and entry is on a first-come, first-served basis.
Glenn Phillips is Curator and Head of Modern and Contemporary Collections at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. Phillips was a member of the core organizational team for Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980, a series of over sixty concurrent exhibitions that were held across Southern California from fall 2011 to spring 2012. His other curatorial projects include Artists and Their Books (2018); Yvonne Rainer: Dances and Films (2014); and California Video (2008). In 2018 he presented with co-curator Philipp Kaiser Harald Szeemann: Museum of Obsessions, a retrospective of Szeemann at the Getty Research Institute that traveled to the Kunsthalle Bern, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, and Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea. A reconstruction of Szeemann’s 1974 exhibition Grandfather: A Pioneer Like Us was presented at the ICA, Los Angeles; 74 Gerechgtigkeitsgasse, Bern; Kunsthalle Dusseldorf; Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea; and Swiss Institute, New York.
Image: Bust with the à la Belle Poule hairstyle, as installed in Grossvater: Ein Pionier wie wir (Grandfather: A pioneer like us), Galerie Toni Gerber, Bern, February 16–April 20, 1974. Photographer: Balthasar Burkhard. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2011.M.30) © J. Paul Getty Trust