Pietro Rigolo

After serving as the Kunsthalle Bern’s youngest-ever director, and as the general secretary of documenta 5 (Kassel, 1972), Harald Szeemann severed his ties with the institutional world, taking a radically different approach to the form and content of exhibitions by expanding their focus to include not just the modern art on display, but also private and historical considerations conveyed through the very layout of the exhibition itself.This brief essay, based on historic documentation, interviews and previously unpublished notes found in the Szeemann archives in Lucerne, analyses a series of exhibits conceived of by the Swiss curator in the seventies, but never actually held, and in particular that entitled “La Mamma”.Part of a trilogy (“Le macchine celibi”, “La Mamma” and “Il Sole”), the project drew on a variety of disciplines, including history, religion, the visual arts, theosophy and feminism, as well as literature, psychoanalysis and anthropology, all for the sake of creating an exhibit with no art, but rather devoted to the study of women, to the evolution of the maternal figure and to the general idea of a female divinity.

This short essay, based on archive documents, interviews and unpublished notes from the Szeemann archives in Locarno, analyses a series of exhibitions conceived by the Swiss curator Harald Szeemann in the 1970s and never staged. "La mamma", which is one of a series of three exhibitions (“Le macchine celibi”, “La mamma” and “Il sole”) was to be an interdisciplinary analysis of the family ideals that permeate our culture. For the innovative curator, remembered above all for the seminal exhibition "When Attitudes Become Form", it marked a withdrawal to a private, intimate sphere after a period marked by very violent professional clashes.  Rich in reflections drawn from various disciplines such as history of religion, visual arts, theosophy and feminism, “La Mamma” would have been a show without art, dedicated to a study of the female universe, the evolution of the mother figure, and the idea of female deity in general.