Hans Ulrich Obrist: Über-curator

Less of a critic and more a facilitator, Hans Ulrich Obrist is an international curator and general organiser of exciting cultural and academic events. Currently Co-Director, Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at London’s Serpentine Gallery, Obrist has a celebrated career with which he has ‘made curating an artform.’

In 1991 he held his first show, World Soup, in his kitchen, featuring prominent artists including Christian Boltanski and Fischel & Weiss. He has previously worked as a curator at the Musee d’Arte Moderne, Paris, and also as an independent curator, executing projects such as Manifesta I (1996) and the ongoing Do It (1997).

For Obrist, the point of origin for all of his exhibitions and publications is conversations. These sustained conversations, recorded and catalogued can continue for many years, and form the basis for his two 1,000 page volumes each called Interviews, as well as many of his other influential texts including A Brief History of Curating.

One of Obrist’s recent contributions to the London art scene is the introduction of the annual Marathons events at Serpentine Gallery. These thematic two day conferences present speakers from a range of fields on a given topic (so far having covered interviews, experiments, manifestos, poetry and maps) and archive these sessions in the form of a comprehensive online blog. Although artists feature prominently on the speakers list, Obrist invites thinkers from other feilds too. He told a reporter Alison Roberts from the London Evening Standard, ‘Art is my home base, I have always worked in art but if you want to understand the forces that affect visual art, you must also know about science, architecture, literature, dance, music and so on.’(Roberts, 2009)

More than anything, Obrist is a personality. A walking caricature of contemporary European curator, he is fluent in six languages and spent his formative years as a nomad, constantly travelling following his hectic calendar of exhibitions and interviews. As co-director of Serpentine he is somewhat settled now, but he remains quirky. His Brutally Early Club meet at 6.30am whenever their cities co-incide, becoming a way busy people can still meet up at the spur or the moment for meaningful discussions before the coffee shop even knows what’s hit it.

Somewhat of an anti-critic, Obrist has demonstrated consistent support and facilitation of the arts, always with  an emphasis on creating circumstances in which communication and dialogue can take place, always acknowledging that information is best from the source- the artists themselves.

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Roberts, A  “Hans Ulrich Obrist-the God of Planet art”, London Evening Standard, 22^nd October, 2009.

Obrist, H 2009  “In conversation with Raoul Vaneigem” e-flux, journal 6, retrieved 8^th August from http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/62


Co-authored by Lisa Bryan-Brown, Katina Davidson and Gabrielle Mactaggart