Harald Szeemann’s mother did not approve of “When Attitudes Become Form.” A resident of Bern, Switzerland, where his famous exhibition took place in 1969, she was horrified by “Attitudes” and the controversy it caused. I’m getting all these terrible phone calls, she wrote to her son. You have to stop doing these gag exhibitions.
That letter from Mrs. Szeemann is one of many archival documents on view on the ground floor of the Ca’ Corner della Regina, the 18th-century Venetian palazzo where Germano Celant, curator of the Prada Foundation, has recreated Szeemann’s groundbreaking show, working in collaboration with the artist Thomas Demand and the architect Rem Koolhaas. This may not be the main event in town—that would be the biennale—but still it’s made an impact. On the second of three press preview days, people were lining up outside, bumping umbrellas in the rain.
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