Through anecdotes, archived notes, and personal accounts, The Good Works Executive Director Elsa Longhauser and curator Philipp Kaiser will discuss the singular mind of Harald Szeemann.

Harald Szeemann (1933–2005) was one of the most distinguished curators of the past fifty years and a figure who became synonymous with the advent of globalism in contemporary art. As the curator at Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland, and later working independently, he developed new forms of exhibition-making that centered on close collaborations with artists and a sweeping international vision of contemporary culture. Szeemann’s exhibitions covered vast areas of research, challenging traditional narratives of art history and embracing creative fields outside the visual arts. He first came to prominence in the late 1960s with exhibitions that provoked controversies at the time and are now seen as touchstones of the era, including Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form (1969) and documenta 5: Questioning Reality—Image Worlds Today (1972).