... dontstopdontstopdontstopdontstop

by Hans Ulrich Obrist

Writings from 1990–2006 by visionary curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. “If art takes place in a contemporary art museum (where we expect it), what does it mean? Art should not be about filling spaces, but about necessities and urgencies.” Such are the principles conveyed by the visionary Hans Ulrich Obrist, seeking out ways to reinvent and invent museums of the 21st century. Newly edited by April Lamm, gathered together here are the seminal texts written by (what Douglas Gordon once aptly described) a “dontstop” curator. His exhibitions present, as Rem Koolhaas writes in his preface to these prefaces, “a heroic effort to preserve the traces of intelligence of the last 50 years, to make sense of the seemingly disjointed, a hedge against the systematic forgetting that is hidden at the core of the information age and which may, in fact, be its secret agenda....” A compendium of texts written between 1990 and 2006, here are exhibition case studies – “Hotel Carlton Palace,” “Cities on the Move,” “Do It,” “Utopia Station” – involving some of the more thought-provoking artists, architects, and scientists of our time such as Paul Chan, Alexander Dorner, Olafur Eliasson, Cao Fei, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Douglas Gordon, Pierre Huyghe, Qingyung Ma, Philippe Parreno, Cedric Price, Luc Steels, Rirkrit Tiravanija, among others, from Zurich to Guangzhou and back again. Designed by M/M (Paris), the cover depicts an original Gerhard Richter over-painted picture of Obrist himself. A must-have for anyone interested in the unusual strategies of a curator-at-large.

Genres: Art

160 pages, Paperback

First published June 10, 2006

About the author

Hans Ulrich Obrist is co-director of the Serpentine Gallery in London. Prior to this, he was Curator of the Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris from 2000 to 2006, as well as curator of Museum in progress, Vienna, from 1993 to 2000. Obrist has co-curated over 250 exhibitions since his first exhibition, the Kitchen show (World Soup) in 1991: including 1st Berlin Biennale, 1998; Utopia Station, 2003; 1st & 2nd Moscow Biennale, 2005 and 2007; Lyon Biennale, 2007; and Indian Highway, 2008-2011.
Obrist is the editor of a series of conversation books published by Walther Koenig. He has also edited the writings of Gerhard Richter, Gilbert & George and Louise Bourgeois. He has contributed to over 200 book projects, his recent publications include A Brief History of Curating, dontstopdontstopdontstopdontstop, The future will be…with M/M (Paris), Interview with Hans-Peter Feldmann, and Ai Wei Wei Speaks, along with two volumes of his selected interviews (Interviews: Vol. 1 & 2). The Marathon series of public events was conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist in Stuttgart in 2005. The first in the Serpentine series, the Interview Marathon in 2006, involved interviews with leading figures in contemporary culture over 24 hours, conducted by Obrist and architect Rem Koolhaas. This was followed by the Experiment Marathon, conceived by Obrist and artist Olafur Eliasson in 2007, the Manifesto Marathon in 2008, the Poetry Marathon in 2009, Map Marathon in 2010, and the Garden Marathon in 2011.
In 2009, Obrist was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). In March 2011, he was awarded the Bard College Award for Curatorial Excellence.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

this collection of essay is animated by livened up discourse on art, community, affects, and various curious manner on being socio-aesthetically alert.