For SLEEK 59, Editor-in-Chief Grace Banks sat down with celebrated curator and director of London’s Serpentine Gallery, Hans Ulrich Obrist. Through the duration of their conversation, they talked about everything from Brexit and the merits of Instagram, to the necessity for connection and the importance of artists in residence. Below are a selection of his most insightful soundbites, but for the full interview — with zeitgeist-capturing photography by the one and only Martin Parr — be sure to pick up a copy of SLEEK 59 available in stores now, or order a copy online at SLEEK Store.
On accessibility in the art world
“In a society full of inequality, we as art institutions, or we in the art and architecture field, need to go to the people, we need to take that obstacle away. That’s my job … it’s to create an interface to bring (people) in.”
On Instagram
“For me I kind of came to it by accident because the artist Ryan Trecartin downloaded the app on my telephone. It adds another layer of research, so I still do what I always did. I will go to their studio, to art school, to graduate exhibitions, I go to galleries, to museums. It just adds another layer to the research, I spend an hour, half an hour, scrolling through my Instagram. I think that definitely today, because I get so much information through digital media, I can see artists’ work in very remote areas of the world whose work I would not have seen otherwise. It maybe also takes away this pressure: … this idea of [there being] ‘one’ centre for art.”
On public art and Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The London Mastaba on Serpentine Lake
“2018 is the summer of public art. We’ve just had Christo at the Serpentine. We invited Christo to realise his and Jeanne-Claude’s oldest unrealised dream. We were with Christo on the bridge and we asked him [if he had] an unrealised project. And Christo said, “Well I want to do two things; I want to do the Mastaba in the desert and I want to do a Mastaba floating on the lake.” And we looked at each other, and we looked at the lake, he pointed at the middle of the lake and this project was born.”
On Mexican architect Frida Escobedo and her design for the Serpentine Pavilion 2018
“She came up with [this] Edouard Glissant reminiscent concept of embracing the global, but in a respectful way. I think the 20th century was a century of loud manifestos and I think the 21st century needs more of this quality of listening to the local context, and she really listened.”
On connection
“I grew up as a single child, which can occasionally feel lonely, so out of that came this incredible necessity to connect, to make junctions; I always wanted to bring people together. Even as a child, I wanted all my friends to meet one another, which is what I still do today. Meeting artists is what I do every day, and to connect them to art directors, to theatre directors, to scientists – which for me is as important as my exhibitions– that juncture-making of bringing people together.”
On Brexit
“I think that now, our role is to follow what Etel Adnan said, that ‘The world needs togetherness, not separation. Love not suspicion. A common future, not isolation’. That is exactly what I believe an art institution in the 21st century should do. My answer to the Brexit question is… No one knows exactly what’s going to happen, right? It’s completely unclear.”
On the possibilities of art
“… artworks are a portal. It’s this real thing that art is so much more than you expect and can become a portal into a new world.”
Photography by Martin Parr.
For the full interview pick up a copy of SLEEK 59 available in stores now, or order a copy online at SLEEK Store.