Los Angeles, 2017

Pietro Rigolo is the Collection Manager and Chief Curator of Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin (2025–). He earned his PhD from Università degli Studi di Siena / Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane in 2011. He earned his PhD from Università degli Studi di Siena/Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane in 2011. His dissertation analyzed Harald Szeemann’s activities in Ticino, with a focus on the history of Monte Verità. His research focuses on modern and contemporary art, history of exhibitions, and curatorial studies. In 2013 Rigolo joined the Getty Research Institute (GRI) as the subject expert in the team cataloguing the Szeemann archive. He is the co-curator of Harald Szeemann: Museum of Obsessions (GRI and Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Kunsthalle Bern; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Swiss Institute, New York, 2018- 19), and one of the editors of Harald Szeemann: Selected Writings (GRI, 2018)—the first English anthology of the curator’s writings.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF HARALD SZEEMANN’S ARCHIVE AND WHAT IMAGE OF THE MAN DOES IT REFLECT? HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE HIS APPROACH TO HIS ARCHIVE?

I think the most striking characteristic of the Szeemann archive is its size. It is fair to say that no other curator has ever amassed such a wealth of material—a library of 28,000 volumes, over 40,000 photographic items, about 4,000 boxes of archival material. This somehow grew out of necessity, given his choice to live in Ticino, and therefore not having access to substantial research resources, but also from Szeemann’s own determination in constructing the archive as a mirror to his own character and his status in the art world. Therefore, through the archive we have a multifaceted image of Szeemann: the revered art world insider, the exhibition maker, the intellectual, the researcher; the hoarder.

His approach to the archive and the way he was using it was, from what I could gather by studying it and talking with his collaborators, both systematic and whimsical. There was a plan and a system in place: everything received by mail was kept, from important correspondence with artists, to invitations from obscure galleries, to charities’ pleas for donations around Christmas time. And everything has its place. Of course there was no catalog, no “finding aid,” but everything could be retrieved and had a specific place in the building. At the same time, for Szeemann it was particularly important to have a space in which all the material was easily accessible and visible: therefore, he avoided drawers and closed boxes, everything was on open shelves, easily reachable without the use of ladders. I believe in the idea of an archive as a path through the forest (think of Armand Schulthess), as a garden if you like, where you can take a stroll and pick a few flowers or just smell them. From various accounts, it seems that much of Szeemann’s thin- king was conducted in this way, walking around in those rooms and picking up what the archive was offering. That’s what I mean by a whimsical, playful—magical, if you like—way of using it.

CAN YOU DESCRIBE HOW THE ARCHIVE LOOKS NOW IN COMPARISON WITH ITS PRESENTATION AT FABBRICA ROSA IN MAGGIA, SWITZERLAND, WHERE IT WAS ORIGINALLY KEPT?

The archive now looks very different, in terms of housing and facilities. The experience of navigating it is also substantially different. First of all, when in Maggia it was a private archive, and using it was subject to the agreement of Szeemann first, and his family afterwards. They were always extremely generous, but they could not offer the level of availability that is provided by a research institute, and that would not have been desirable, being as it was a space for work and cultural production. Now it is open to every researcher, for an indefinite time, and this of course opens up other possibilities for research and engagement with it.

I was visiting the Fabbrica Rosa from about 2008 to 2010. First of all, it was freezing. Encounters with the material were somehow more spontaneous, casual and random—meaning I spent a lot of time there, I had a lot of fun, but I also missed a lot. I was researching for my dissertation, with no money and no time to waste, so I was always in a hurry, and anxious about missing out so much. My experience here in Los Angeles has been totally different: working as an archivist I have developed an ongoing relationship with the material, a relationship that became also more intimate and tactile. It’s no longer only about the content of the paper, but also about its materiality, conditions, and housing.

HOW DID YOU DECIDE TO ORGANIZE THE ARCHIVE AT THE GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE, AND WHY? IN WHAT WAY DID SZEEMANN USE THE ARCHIVE AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH IT NOW?

Access at the Getty Research Institute, as in most research institutes housing archival material, is mediated by an online database listing what is to be found where, and through this tool it is possible to request the material you want to consult. It is no longer possible to take a stroll through the archive, but we have followed the original arrangement in organizing the database, so in a way it mimics how the archive was laid out at the Fabbrica Rosa. The way the material is organized here developed from studying and mapping the Fabbrica itself. Different series were created, according to the disposition of the material in the different rooms. For example, upstairs in the Fabbrica’s fax room the material was organized in binders, chronologically following the sequence of Szeemann’s projects. This became the Project Files series, whereas the material contained in manila envelopes and boxed in the famous Villa Jelmini wine boxes downstairs, which was organized alphabetically by artist’s name, became the Artists’ Files. In a way, I think the role of an archive repository should just be to keep the material safe and available. So we are doing that, which is quite a demanding task in itself. But we are also a rese- arch center; therefore, we organize seminars, we teach classes, we conduct oral history interviews, we have organized an exhibition that will travel to four countries between 2018 and 2019—featuring also the reconstruction of the 1974 Szeemann show Grossvater—and on the occasion of the exhibition we published two books, the catalog and the first anthology of Szeemann’s writings in English. After this first, years-long phase, in which the archive has been taken care of and put in the spotlight, in the following decades it will still be open for research and new projects. So the right question would not only be what we are making out of it, but what the entire research community will make out of it. That remains to be seen.

WHY IS SZEEMANN’S ARCHIVE SO RELEVANT FOR ART HISTORY AND EXHIBITIONS? WHAT DOES A CURATORIAL ARCHIVE TELL US ABOUT A CURATOR’S ACTIVITY AND VISION, AND HOW CAN WE USE THIS KNOWLEDGE?

The archive was, as I have said, a way for Szeemann to offer a portrait of himself; to organize knowledge, and—consciously and paradoxically—it was the permanent legacy of a man who always worked with an ephemeral, temporal medium. From it we have a complete picture of the man and of the curator: his interests, his obsessions, his method, his ideas and values. It is the most striking example I have encountered of an archive which delivers such a clear image of its creator, and that is due in part I believe to the fact that this process was consciously carried out for decades and in part to the amount of space, time, and resources he poured into it. This is why this archive is so relevant for the study of curatorial practice, the history of exhibitions and art history in general. Then, on top of that it is a source of unique material documenting some of the most significant events of the post WWII art scene, and offers unique and important collections on specific subjects, such as Alfred Jarry, pataphysics, and the history of Monte Verità.

I feel the curator and the arena in which the curator positions his/her activities have been constantly renegotiated and in flux in the last few decades. We are now in an age of “total curation,” where our food, our music, our afternoon at the spa, everything is curated, and maybe with diminishing care for our planet and its inhabitants. The Szeemann papers offer not only his vision of what a curator is: his position shaped our understanding of the curatorial—at least of what it was at a time that is now seen as foundational for the discourses we are trying to develop today.