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    Like a shadow on an expanse of water –  Five Russian Nature and Philosophical Poems from “Natura d’altri mondi” (Giraldi 2020), ed. by Vasily Biserov

    Like a shadow on an expanse of water – Five Russian Nature and Philosophical Poems from “Natura d’altri mondi” (Giraldi 2020), ed. by Vasily Biserov

    FEATURED PROJECT: From a Menu of Distinctively Flavored Tea Poems. Part II by Encyclopedic Poetry School

    FEATURED PROJECT: From a Menu of Distinctively Flavored Tea Poems. Part II by Encyclopedic Poetry School

    FEATURED PROJECT: From a Menu of Distinctively Flavored Tea Poems. PART I, by  Encyclopedic Poetry School

    FEATURED PROJECT: From a Menu of Distinctively Flavored Tea Poems. PART I, by Encyclopedic Poetry School

    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

    On the tip of her voice a library alive – Six Poems by Gonca Özmen, trans. from Turkish by Neil P. Doherty

    I have gone too far inside a dream – Poems by Animikh Patra for Villa Romana

    I have gone too far inside a dream – Poems by Animikh Patra for Villa Romana

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    Three poems from Julio Monteiro Martin’s “La grazia di casa mia”, translated by Don Stang and Helen Wickes

  • Fiction
    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    from The Widows Series – “Claude”, “Cargo”, “Etc.” – Three Unpublished Short-Stories by Lynne Knight

    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

    I Want to Be Loved, a New Story by Mia Funk

    Man Ray’s Lips, a new story by Mia Funk

    Man Ray’s Lips, a new story by Mia Funk

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    A Child of Snow, a new story by Mia Funk

    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

    The Vulture- by Hasan Azizul Huq, trans. by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay

    “War and Peace”, Short Story by Mario Benedetti, with Introduction by Clark Bouwman

    “War and Peace”, Short Story by Mario Benedetti, with Introduction by Clark Bouwman

    “Sofía, qué soñaste?” – Vignette from Sonia Gutiérrez’s “Dreaming with Mariposas”

    “Sofía, qué soñaste?” – Vignette from Sonia Gutiérrez’s “Dreaming with Mariposas”

    DIARY OF A DANCING DREAMER IN THE STREETS OF BERLIN – Giulia Marchetti

    DIARY OF A DANCING DREAMER IN THE STREETS OF BERLIN – Giulia Marchetti

    WAITING FOR THE DARK, by Mia Funk

    WAITING FOR THE DARK, by Mia Funk

  • Non Fiction
    Brigada Dignidad: A Health Team Healing the Wounded by the Police in Santiago, Chile – Ximena Soza

    Brigada Dignidad: A Health Team Healing the Wounded by the Police in Santiago, Chile – Ximena Soza

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    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

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    All About EY – Musings about Literature, the Short Story and the Current State of Literary Affairs –  by Shajil Anthru

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    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

    People Die, Not From Old Age or War or Disease – But from Disappointment, by séamas carraher

  • Interviews & reviews
    Writing “Andolo, the Talented Albino” –  An Interview with Cameroonian Author Nsah Mala, by Pina Piccolo

    Writing “Andolo, the Talented Albino” – An Interview with Cameroonian Author Nsah Mala, by Pina Piccolo

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    “Pretending to Be Healthy” Gin Angri’s Photo- Essay from Como (Italy)

    Prima il Punto – Christine Maigne interviewed by Camilla Boemio

    Prima il Punto – Christine Maigne interviewed by Camilla Boemio

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    Mia Funk Interviews Photographer Mark Seliger

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    Photographer Marilyn Minter Interviewed by Mia Funk

    Mia Funk Interviews Novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen

    Mia Funk Interviews Novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen

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    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    Here comes the voice – Poems by Antonio Merola

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    Many Disoriented Small Migrations- Poems by Jean-Charles Vegliante

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    Embraces on hold till a magic clock-strike twelve – Five Poems by Michael D. Amitin

    A GLOBAL ART PROJECT PROSPECTUS / DESCRIPTION / HISTORY: toward international collaborative activity, by Carl Heyward

    A GLOBAL ART PROJECT PROSPECTUS / DESCRIPTION / HISTORY: toward international collaborative activity, by Carl Heyward

    “Through the Fluid Mosaic” – Following Maica Gugolati though the Permeable Borders of the  Art Exhibition

    “Through the Fluid Mosaic” – Following Maica Gugolati though the Permeable Borders of the Art Exhibition

    Ghayath Almadhoun’s “Evian” Wins the 2020 Poetry Film Zebra Award

    Ghayath Almadhoun’s “Evian” Wins the 2020 Poetry Film Zebra Award

    “Ladri di denti” (Tooth Thieves) – Candice Whitney Reviews Djarah Kan’s Latest Short-Story Collection

    “Ladri di denti” (Tooth Thieves) – Candice Whitney Reviews Djarah Kan’s Latest Short-Story Collection

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    The thankless parables – Poems by Sudip Chattopadhyay

    Curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist Interviewed by Mia Funk

    Curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist Interviewed by Mia Funk

  • News
    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5:  Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5: Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

    IL BIANCO E IL NERO – LE PAROLE PER DIRLO, Conference Milan Sept. 7

    IL BIANCO E IL NERO – LE PAROLE PER DIRLO, Conference Milan Sept. 7

    OPEN POEM TO THE CURATORS OF THE 58th VENICE BIENNALE  FROM THE GHOSTS OF THAT RELIC YOU SHOULD NOT DARE CALL “OUR BOAT” (Pina Piccolo)

    OPEN POEM TO THE CURATORS OF THE 58th VENICE BIENNALE FROM THE GHOSTS OF THAT RELIC YOU SHOULD NOT DARE CALL “OUR BOAT” (Pina Piccolo)

    OPEN LETTER BY A GROUP OF BLACK ITALIAN WOMEN

    OPEN LETTER BY A GROUP OF BLACK ITALIAN WOMEN

    Crowdfunding for [DI]SCORDARE project

    Crowdfunding for [DI]SCORDARE project

  • Home
  • Poetry
    Like a shadow on an expanse of water –  Five Russian Nature and Philosophical Poems from “Natura d’altri mondi” (Giraldi 2020), ed. by Vasily Biserov

    Like a shadow on an expanse of water – Five Russian Nature and Philosophical Poems from “Natura d’altri mondi” (Giraldi 2020), ed. by Vasily Biserov

    FEATURED PROJECT: From a Menu of Distinctively Flavored Tea Poems. Part II by Encyclopedic Poetry School

    FEATURED PROJECT: From a Menu of Distinctively Flavored Tea Poems. Part II by Encyclopedic Poetry School

    FEATURED PROJECT: From a Menu of Distinctively Flavored Tea Poems. PART I, by  Encyclopedic Poetry School

    FEATURED PROJECT: From a Menu of Distinctively Flavored Tea Poems. PART I, by Encyclopedic Poetry School

    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

    On the tip of her voice a library alive – Six Poems by Gonca Özmen, trans. from Turkish by Neil P. Doherty

    I have gone too far inside a dream – Poems by Animikh Patra for Villa Romana

    I have gone too far inside a dream – Poems by Animikh Patra for Villa Romana

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    Three poems from Julio Monteiro Martin’s “La grazia di casa mia”, translated by Don Stang and Helen Wickes

  • Fiction
    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    from The Widows Series – “Claude”, “Cargo”, “Etc.” – Three Unpublished Short-Stories by Lynne Knight

    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

    I Want to Be Loved, a New Story by Mia Funk

    Man Ray’s Lips, a new story by Mia Funk

    Man Ray’s Lips, a new story by Mia Funk

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    A Child of Snow, a new story by Mia Funk

    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

    The Vulture- by Hasan Azizul Huq, trans. by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay

    “War and Peace”, Short Story by Mario Benedetti, with Introduction by Clark Bouwman

    “War and Peace”, Short Story by Mario Benedetti, with Introduction by Clark Bouwman

    “Sofía, qué soñaste?” – Vignette from Sonia Gutiérrez’s “Dreaming with Mariposas”

    “Sofía, qué soñaste?” – Vignette from Sonia Gutiérrez’s “Dreaming with Mariposas”

    DIARY OF A DANCING DREAMER IN THE STREETS OF BERLIN – Giulia Marchetti

    DIARY OF A DANCING DREAMER IN THE STREETS OF BERLIN – Giulia Marchetti

    WAITING FOR THE DARK, by Mia Funk

    WAITING FOR THE DARK, by Mia Funk

  • Non Fiction
    Brigada Dignidad: A Health Team Healing the Wounded by the Police in Santiago, Chile – Ximena Soza

    Brigada Dignidad: A Health Team Healing the Wounded by the Police in Santiago, Chile – Ximena Soza

    Time to Transition: Essay by Clarissa Clò,  Image and Document Galleries from the Grassroots Movements, by Barbara Ofosu-Soumah and Marina Romani

    Time to Transition: Essay by Clarissa Clò, Image and Document Galleries from the Grassroots Movements, by Barbara Ofosu-Soumah and Marina Romani

    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

    COMEDY AND CHILDHOOD. A conversation between Dario Fo and Walter Valeri

    All About EY – Musings about Literature, the Short Story and the Current State of Literary Affairs –  by Shajil Anthru

    All About EY – Musings about Literature, the Short Story and the Current State of Literary Affairs – by Shajil Anthru

    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

    Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

    People Die, Not From Old Age or War or Disease – But from Disappointment, by séamas carraher

  • Interviews & reviews
    Writing “Andolo, the Talented Albino” –  An Interview with Cameroonian Author Nsah Mala, by Pina Piccolo

    Writing “Andolo, the Talented Albino” – An Interview with Cameroonian Author Nsah Mala, by Pina Piccolo

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    “Pretending to Be Healthy” Gin Angri’s Photo- Essay from Como (Italy)

    Prima il Punto – Christine Maigne interviewed by Camilla Boemio

    Prima il Punto – Christine Maigne interviewed by Camilla Boemio

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    Mia Funk Interviews Photographer Mark Seliger

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    Photographer Marilyn Minter Interviewed by Mia Funk

    Mia Funk Interviews Novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen

    Mia Funk Interviews Novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen

  • Out of bounds
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    • Intersections
    • Interviews and reviews
    • Non fiction
    • Poetry
    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    Here comes the voice – Poems by Antonio Merola

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    Many Disoriented Small Migrations- Poems by Jean-Charles Vegliante

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    Embraces on hold till a magic clock-strike twelve – Five Poems by Michael D. Amitin

    A GLOBAL ART PROJECT PROSPECTUS / DESCRIPTION / HISTORY: toward international collaborative activity, by Carl Heyward

    A GLOBAL ART PROJECT PROSPECTUS / DESCRIPTION / HISTORY: toward international collaborative activity, by Carl Heyward

    “Through the Fluid Mosaic” – Following Maica Gugolati though the Permeable Borders of the  Art Exhibition

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    Ghayath Almadhoun’s “Evian” Wins the 2020 Poetry Film Zebra Award

    Ghayath Almadhoun’s “Evian” Wins the 2020 Poetry Film Zebra Award

    “Ladri di denti” (Tooth Thieves) – Candice Whitney Reviews Djarah Kan’s Latest Short-Story Collection

    “Ladri di denti” (Tooth Thieves) – Candice Whitney Reviews Djarah Kan’s Latest Short-Story Collection

    POEMS FOR PEACE, by Hamid Barole Abdu

    The thankless parables – Poems by Sudip Chattopadhyay

    Curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist Interviewed by Mia Funk

    Curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist Interviewed by Mia Funk

  • News
    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5:  Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5: Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

    IL BIANCO E IL NERO – LE PAROLE PER DIRLO, Conference Milan Sept. 7

    IL BIANCO E IL NERO – LE PAROLE PER DIRLO, Conference Milan Sept. 7

    OPEN POEM TO THE CURATORS OF THE 58th VENICE BIENNALE  FROM THE GHOSTS OF THAT RELIC YOU SHOULD NOT DARE CALL “OUR BOAT” (Pina Piccolo)

    OPEN POEM TO THE CURATORS OF THE 58th VENICE BIENNALE FROM THE GHOSTS OF THAT RELIC YOU SHOULD NOT DARE CALL “OUR BOAT” (Pina Piccolo)

    OPEN LETTER BY A GROUP OF BLACK ITALIAN WOMEN

    OPEN LETTER BY A GROUP OF BLACK ITALIAN WOMEN

    Crowdfunding for [DI]SCORDARE project

    Crowdfunding for [DI]SCORDARE project

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Curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist Interviewed by Mia Funk

Courtesy of The Creative Process. Cover art by Mia Funk.

November 22, 2020
in Intersections, Out of bounds, The dreaming machine n 7
Curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist Interviewed by Mia Funk
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The Dreaming Machine is honored to be part of The Creative Process, an exhibition and international educational initiative traveling to leading universities. As part of the exhibition, portraits and interviews with writers, artists, and creative thinkers are being published across a network of university and international literary/arts magazines. The Creative Process is including work by The Dreaming Machine’s contributors in the projection elements of the traveling exhibition.

 

Hans-Ulrich Obrist

Interviewed by Mia Funk

 

Hans-Ulrich Obrist is Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries in London, and Senior Artistic Advisor of The Shed in New York. Prior to this, he was the Curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Obrist has curated more than 300 exhibitions and lectured internationally at academic and art institutions. He is a co-editor of Cahiers d’Art and a contributing editor to Artforum, AnOther Magazine, 032C and writes columns for Das Magazin and Weltkunst. He received the CCS Bard Award for Curatorial Excellence and the International Folkwang Prize. His recent publications include Mondialité, Conversations in Mexico, Ways of Curating, Lives of The Artists, and Lives of The Architects.

 

You can listen to this interview on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Breaker, Castbox, Overcast, RadioPublic, Podtail, Radio.com and Listen Notes, among others.

 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Hans-Ulrich Obrist, welcome to The Creative Process.  It’s a pleasure to see you here at the Café Flore. 

HANS-ULRICH OBRIST

Thank you very much. I did the majority of my meetings here at the Café de Flore during the 14 years I lived in Paris. It was almost like my second office.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

The last time we met was during Paris Photo. I remember over dinner someone said how you’re forever sharing ideas and connecting people to one another. In a way, it’s like curation.

OBRIST

I’ve always thought that curating has to do with junction making, which is what J.G. Ballard defined it as when I met him. And I’m always thinking of ways to bring people together and make connections between different worlds. I think, if we want to address the big questions or challenges of the 21st century, it’s very important that we go beyond the fear of pooling knowledge and move beyond these silos of knowledge to bring the different disciplines together. With exhibitions, for example, I make junctions between artworks, artists, art, and different disciplines because we live in a society where there are a lot of silos with very different specialized worlds.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

I know rituals are important for you. Having interviewed thousands of people and curated over 300 exhibitions, what rituals have you observed in artists and very talented people which you’ve found helpful?

OBRIST

DaVinci had this rhythm where he would only sleep for 15 minutes every three hours. As an experiment, I did this for almost a year. It’s how I wrote my first books. Now I sleep much more because it wasn’t fully sustainable. I think the idea of the ritual is interesting because, of course, it involves a certain repetition, a certain stability, even if they’re different each time. Today we live in a situation where we have a lot of communication which lacks community. These devices can be quite isolating.  I’ve always had an inclination to introduce rituals to my life. For example, I buy a book every day. Another ritual is the night train.

I started my whole trajectory by using night trains when I was a student in the late 80s, early 90s. In those days, you could go to the railway station at midnight and arrive in any city in Europe. Today, many of these trains have disappeared, and I see it as an incredible necessity to bring them back with artists, architects, and designers and develop a new presence of night trains because they were one of my most important rituals. So it’s not so much about traveling less, but traveling differently. And I think we need to have that possibility of moving slower again, right?

Another ritual for me is reading Édouard Glissant every morning. Glissant very early on understood that the homogenizing forces are at stake also in the world of culture and that this is not the first time we experienced globalization, but it is suddenly, without a doubt, the most vehement moment of globalization we have experienced. And I think it’s important we resist that because homogenized globalization leads to extinction, leads to a disappearance of species, but also disappearance of cultural phenomena. We are losing many languages which are disappearing at a faster speed than ever before.

At the same time, cultural phenomena such as handwriting are disappearing. I dedicate my Instagram, as you might know, to doodling and hand-writing. So every day, I post a handwritten note. “You’re a tree” by Koo Jeong A or Anarchic Gaudí Calligraphy by Claudia Pagès Rabal. So I will post every day a calligraphy or handwritten doodle or note to protest against the disappearance of handwriting.

So, as Édouard Glissant says, “We need to resist homogenized globalization and what disappears with it.” At the same time, Glissant understood early on that there is a counter-reaction at stake and that that counter-reaction to globalization can also be called antiglobalization that will actually lead to the disappearance of tolerance. It will lead to a kind of antiglobalization through nationalism and localisms. And he said we need to resist that as much. We need to vehemently resist these new forms of lack of solidarity. So he said we need to both resist globalization and resist its counter-reaction.

A day for me is very long. If I look at today, for example, it was very intense. When we can make a day into a week or a week into a month, we can stretch time or liberate time. For me, I feel the older one becomes, the faster time passes. With every year advancing, time goes by faster. So I think it’s important that we liberate time. Otherwise, we are somehow imprisoned in our own system of being busy. We need to be able to experiment. So, in that sense, for me it’s about liberating time. 

Today I saw Etel Adnan, the great poet, artist, activist, architect, and visionary writer. She always gives me so much courage. I think we live in a world where we need immense courage to function and even more courage, not only to function every day and get out of bed, but we need immense courage to make a contribution to society. So I hope that with my work I can somehow create that. I have a lot of mentors and artists from whom I got advice on how to do it, but I think hopefully it’s a toolbox. I hope that my evocative, sprawling, evolving exhibitions, in a similar way, can be a toolbox for people.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

I’ve experienced only a small slice of your immense work and, as I listen to you speak, I think that you have a very pure relationship to art. There’s a lot of cynicism that other people have about monetary values attached to art. Sometimes it’s seen either as decorative or having monetary value. Is that disappointing to you? To me, you seem such a contrast to this.

OBRIST

I grew up in a small town in Switzerland called Weinfelden. It’s near the Lake of Constance where three countries meet. Growing up in this village, I would read the village newspaper when I came home from school. There were all these articles about Joseph Beuys having founded the Green Party. The idea of the Green Party and ecology was already there. There was Andy Warhol doing The Last Supper in Milan. These things made me dream. I wanted to be part of the art world and started to visit artists and so on.

I left Switzerland quite early. Before that, I studied economy and ecology with Professor Hans-Christoph Binswanger. Then I got a grant. When I was 22 and a student, I did an exhibition called The Kitchen Show in my kitchen with Peter Fischli and David Weiss from Zürich, Christian Boltanski from Paris, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré from Abidjan. This exhibition had only 29 visitors but became a rumor. People who saw it saw something they had never experienced, a show in a kitchen. And they told their friends, and we did a book, and it became a rumor.

So in a very do-it-yourself way, I had somehow started to work. The show had a budget of 300 Swiss francs. Then I very soon got the grant to go to Paris and became a resident of the Cartier Foundation. Then I met my mentor Suzanne Pagé, who I actually saw today, who now runs the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and she was at the time the director of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. She gave me my first job. She asked me to write for her Giacometti catalog and interview all the artists who had known Alberto Giacometti, which was an amazing project for a 22-year-old curator to do because I could see Matta. I could go and see Cartier-Bresson, Mario Merz, Franz West… They were all still alive, these historic figures. Then basically I became part of the Musée d’Art Moderne. Suzanne realized that I was more like a free spirit. So she invented this formula migrateur where little exhibitions could happen anywhere in the museum.

So, I had left Switzerland for good. l have a lot of friends there, and I have a show there again called It’s urgent at the Luma Westbau, but I’ve not been based in Switzerland since I was 23. I stopped my studies and went abroad and worked for the Musée d’Art Moderne. My mother, as a kind of a Christmas present at the end of the year, would always give me an envelope with all the articles which had reached the Swiss village from our artf world. Whenever there was an article about contemporary art in the village newspaper she would cut it out and put it in the envelope. Through my mother’s summary of what reaches that little village from our world, I realized how drastically the art world had changed because when I was a kid, it was all about big ideas and changing the world. And little by little, it was no longer about that. What reached the village in Switzerland were auction records.

I’m interviewed almost every day for newspapers or magazines. I’m very regularly asked to comment on the art market. I always say, you’ve got the wrong guy because I know nothing about it. I don’t know about the art market. I mean, it’s not my job. I bring art into the public sector. I work with artists. I write books. I try to curate very public exhibitions. We have more than a million visitors a year at the Serpentine. It’s a very public work, but it has nothing to do with the art market.

I’ve never had a problem with the fact that there is an art market where artists can make a living, but what is an issue is that that becomes the main thing from our world which goes into society because it then replaces the strong ideas. I think today we have a situation where extraordinary artists like the Sondra Perrys and the Ian Chengs and Precious Okoyomon.

And we basically need to find a way that the village newspaper will write again about these ideas and not just about auction records. I think today we must do new experiments in art and technology, which is why at the Serpentine we’ve appointed Chief Technology Officer Ben Vickers. Museums usually don’t have a CTO. We’ve made technology and science central aspects of our organization. Science, research, development, and technology. And so with Ben, we initially started to do commissions, but now we’ve actually made it part of exhibitions, for example, with the Cao Fei exhibition. We’re having her first VR and AR commission with Acute Art. And there’s going to be a kitchen like in my Kitchen Show with a VR kitchen. So 30 years later, we’re now having another kitchen show. We’ve had Hito Steyerl with special apps in the park, an Inequality Walk, and also her imagining Kensington Gardens almost like a sci-fi scenario 40 years into the future.

We have Jakob Kudsk Steensen, that’s a collaboration with BTS, the K-pop band. That’s, of course, also crossing audiences. This is the world of K-pop and this is the world of museums. [Now Obrist picks up a pen and begins sketching on some paper that he constantly has on hand.] There is an overlapping entity, but it’s great if all of a sudden, you bring these two worlds together, then everybody who comes from K-pop also sees Jakob Kudsk Steensen and vice versa. So basically you merge the fields. I think that they can learn a lot from each other. First of all, it’s a crossing of audience, and I’m very glad that all these teenage fans of BTS come to the Serpentine and encounter contemporary art because I believe that contemporary art has a transformative power. It had an incredibly transformative power on me.

I know a lot of people who have these incredibly transformative experiences with art and architecture. A taxi driver told me the other day when he dropped me off at the Serpentine, he asked me if I worked there. He wanted to thank us because last summer his daughter had an epiphany running into the Pavilion that all of a sudden she wanted to become an architect. To encounter art, architecture, or design can have an incredible impact on us, our lives, and be a life-changing positive force. So, I want as many people as possible to have access to that.

 

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Ally Chou. Digital Media Coordinator was Yu Young Lee. If you would like to participate in The Creative Process exhibition, podcasts or submit your creative works, just drop us a line at team@creativeprocess.info.

Tags: curatingÉdouard GlissantHans-Ulrich Obristhomogenized globalizationjunction makingMia FunkmuseumresistanceSerpentine Gallerytechnology

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Fiction

Tales of the Orange Time of Day, by Lethokuhle Msimang

“I think I might be an old-fashioned writer. People often comment that I'm a 19th-century writer. And I think maybe ...

November 28, 2019
Interviews and reviews

Designing Afrofuturism in Black Panther: Interview with Ruth E. Carter by Anna Lombardi, curated by Cristina Lombardi-Diop

As I watched, mesmerised, the costumes of Black Panther on the huge screen of a movie theatre in Chicago, I realised that ...

April 28, 2020
Non Fiction

ABOUT BEING HERE – life-j

Sometimes when Jane and I are waking up together, as I lie there snuggling up to her warm body, still ...

May 2, 2019
Interviews and reviews

ON “ITALIANA” PHOTOGRAPHIC ANTHOLOGY BY GIULIO RIMONDI-Introduction by Christian Caujolle

  All the photos in the gallery are from Giulio Rimondi's anthology, ITALIANA, Kehrer Verlag Heildenberg, Berlin, 2016. Excerpts from ...

November 20, 2017
Fiction

How to Mail Books, or Advice on Leaving Your House – Carolyn Miller

  Some people know me as the person who fulfills the Amazon orders for a small nonprofit publishing company. But ...

December 2, 2018

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Writing “Andolo, the Talented Albino” –  An Interview with Cameroonian Author Nsah Mala, by Pina Piccolo

Writing “Andolo, the Talented Albino” – An Interview with Cameroonian Author Nsah Mala, by Pina Piccolo

December 3, 2020
Like a shadow on an expanse of water –  Five Russian Nature and Philosophical Poems from “Natura d’altri mondi” (Giraldi 2020), ed. by Vasily Biserov

Like a shadow on an expanse of water – Five Russian Nature and Philosophical Poems from “Natura d’altri mondi” (Giraldi 2020), ed. by Vasily Biserov

December 3, 2020
FEATURED PROJECT: From a Menu of Distinctively Flavored Tea Poems. Part II by Encyclopedic Poetry School

FEATURED PROJECT: From a Menu of Distinctively Flavored Tea Poems. Part II by Encyclopedic Poetry School

December 1, 2020
FEATURED PROJECT: From a Menu of Distinctively Flavored Tea Poems. PART I, by  Encyclopedic Poetry School

FEATURED PROJECT: From a Menu of Distinctively Flavored Tea Poems. PART I, by Encyclopedic Poetry School

December 1, 2020

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RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT
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RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

by Dreaming Machine
5 months ago
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3 SEPTEMBER 2020 – DEADLINE FOR RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT   Rucksack, at Global Poetry Patchwork is an...

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