La Tableau de Szeemann

Abstract

The demystification of the concepts of art and authorship that conceptual art brought about is closely related to the emergence, at the time, of new agents in the field of arts who adopted an authorial function. This is the c ase of the so-called curator-author. As Harald Szeemann foreshadowed in 1969, the idea was born scarcely two years after Roland Barthes suggested “the death of the author”. Szeemann’s Tableau hypothesizes the possibility of a direct connection between both events, while it also traces the exchanges that took place between art and mediation under the influence of post-minimalism and the dawn of Post-Fordism. This article also explores the attempts made by Seth Siegelaub and Lucy Lippardin with regards to exhibiting methodologies, amplifying the deconstructionist echo of conceptual art rather than retracting it into author positions. Finally, the text analyzes the outstanding role of the publications issued during an especially fruitful time in art-mediation.