Seth Siegelaub: Beyond Conceptual Art

Edited by Leontine Coelewij and Sara Martinetti

Exhibition catalogue published by Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2016

English

17 x 24 cm, 560 p.

“Seth Siegelaub (1941–2013) is best known for his decisive role in the emergence and establishment of Conceptual Art in the late 1960s.

This extensively researched publication documents the first exhibition about his life and work, which reassess his role as one of the distinctive characters in twentieth-century exhibition-making, while recognizing his atypical, inquisitive, and free-spirited genius.

Siegelaub was also a gallerist, independent curator, publisher, researcher, archivist, collector, and bibliographer. Often credited as the ‘Father of Conceptual Art,’ he was (and remains) a seminal influence on curators, artists, and cultural thinkers, internationally and in Amsterdam, where he settled in the 1990s.

With revolutionary projects such as the Xerox Book, he set the blueprint for the presentation and dissemination of conceptual practices. In the process, he redefined the exhibition space, which could now be a book, a poster, an announcement, or reality at large.

Siegelaub’s radical reassessment of the conditions of art resonated deeply with the iconoclastic views of his contemporaries Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Daniel Buren, Jan Dibbets, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth, Lawrence Weiner, among others, with whom he developed close working relationships.” (Cornerhouse Publications)

I translated all the French texts to English and copy-edited various English texts.