Włodzimierz Borowski. Works and reconstructions
Teresa Gleadowe: When Attitudes Became Form

The exhibition “When Attitudes Become Form”, organised by Harald Szeemann at the Kunsthalle Berne early in 1969, is celebrated as the first major exhibition to bring together international developments in post-Minimalism, Arte Povera, Land art and Conceptual art and to juxtapose the art then emerging in the US with developments in Western Europe.

Many of the exhibits were created by the artists 'in situ' and the exhibition embraced the fact that, for many artists at the time, the gallery was becoming not only a space of presentation but also a space of production. This aspect of the exhibition had immediate consequences for the curators involved in its subsequent tour, requiring them to re-present work that was initially site-related or process-based. In its touring manifestations, especially its showing at the ICA in London under the supervision of the art historian Charles Harrison, “When Attitudes Become Form” thus posed problems that have since been faced by many curators attempting to reconstruct installations from the late sixties and early seventies. Teresa Gleadowe will present some of the visual material gathered for the book Exhibiting the New Art by Christian Rattemeyer, which launches the new Afterall series Exhibition Histories with a study of “When Attitudes Become Form” and the contemporaneous exhibition “Op Losse Schroeven”. Looking at the evidence provided by this material, she will consider problems involved in revisiting the art of this moment, also referring to more recent exhibitions that have attempted this task.