Installation view of “When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013 ”From left to right: Stephen Kaltenbach Graffiti Stamp: Lips of Artist, 1968; Joseph Kosuth I. Space (Art as Idea) Tagwacht” March 8/9 1969, “Illustrierte” March 8/9 1969, “Der Bund” March 9 1969, “Berner Tagblatt” March 8/9 1969, 1969 Fondazione Prada, Ca’ Corner della Regina Venice, 1 June – 3 November 2013 Photo: Attilio Maranzano Courtesy: Fondazione Prada
From left to right:Joseph Beuys, Bill Bollinger and Keith Sonnier“When Attitudes Become
Form” Kunsthalle Bern, 1969 Photo: Shunk Kender © Roy Lichtenstein Foundation
Tiina Alvesalo
”It is all about visual rhythm. Visual rhythm is a representation of avant-garde drama. My source of inspiration is Arte Povera, literally meaning ‘poor art’, which is a modern art movement organized by Italian art critic and curator Germano Celant. The term was first introduced in Italy in the 1960’s and 70’s when artists began attacking the values of established institutions and culture.“
The Fondazione Prada presents an exhibition at Ca’ Corner della Regina in Venice entitled “When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013”. In a surprising and novel reworking, the project reconstructs “Live in Your Head. When Attitudes Become Form,” a show originally curated by Harald Szeemann at the Bern Kunsthalle in 1969, which made history trough the curator’s radical approach to exhibition practice based on a linguistic medium. To present today an exhibition from 1969, exactly as it was, including its original visual ann formal relations and links between the works, has posed a series of questions related to the complexity and very meaning of the project. This in fact developed into a profound debate from various perspectives: the artistic, the architectural and the curatorial. It is, in fact, an exercise in “double occupancy”: in a way similar to how the spaces of the Venice Kunsthalle were occupied by a generation of young revolutionary artists in 1969.