Hans Ulrich Obrist. Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Architects. London, 2015. Part One

CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION

Hans Ulrich Obrist
Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Architects
London, Allen Lane, 2015, 544 pages

(review by Francesco Mazzaferro)

Part One: Universal Art in a Global World

[Original version: January-February 2016 - New version: April 2019]

Fig. 1) The book cover, in the edition of Allen Lane dated 2015 

Two myths: Vasari and the word

The myth of Giorgio Vasari lives a second life with the last volume of Hans Ulrich Obrist (1968-), perhaps the most famous of contemporary curators. He himself confirms it in the (only) two pages of the introduction to his extensive collection of dialogues with nineteen artists and architects of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, published in 2015. The author tells us that he was inspired by Vasari's Lives, which he read in the early years of his precocious education on art. The interest for the historian from Arezzo (obviously not forgotten even by a person like him, who transformed museum experimentation into his mission of life [1]) encompasses the importance of biographical aspect (as immediately confirmed by the title of the work), but is even more focused on the concept of global art that has its origin in the art of the Italian Renaissance (where universal geniuses were not only able to succeed in the production of painting, sculpture and architecture, but were also proficient in writing). Referring to Vasari has an evocative power that - for a Swiss of German language with a great cultural background like him - recalls the mission of a great compatriot, Jakob Burckhardt: to create a link between classical and romantic cultures. In the German-speaking world, the concept of universality of art has been in fact handed over from Vasari’s renaissance to the to late-romantic concept of total art work, the Gesamtkunstwerk. It is no coincidence that another recent work by Obrist, the delightful essay entitled Ways of curating [2], devotes an entire chapter on Curating, Exhibitions and the Gesamtkunstwerk (pp. 22-35), dedicated to exhibition Der Hang zum Gesamtkunstwerk (The inclination towards a total art) that was held in Zurich between February and April 1983. Obrist says he visited it 41 times. In his interviews the curator asked architects to talk about decorative arts, and painters and sculptors to speak on architecture. In talks with all of them, Obrist attempts to highlight the most conceptual aspects of contemporary art, therefore those that can best be described by spoken language. He seems to say that the decades between the twentieth and twenty-first century are precisely a time when the concept of art expanded to the point of reaching the dematerialization of art itself, making it impossible to understand it without a dialogue with the artist. Ways of curating also includes a tribute to the exhibition Les Immateriaux, which was organized in 1985 by the philosopher Jean-François Lyotard at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. That is where, for the first time, a dematerialized art (that is an art which was no longer tied to the physical nature of the art object) was object of theoretical consideration. This dematerialization made art capable of a direct relationship with philosophy, poetry, literature and cinema.

The book lays the aesthetic preferences of the artists, their personal lives, the successes and failures along the path of their career at the heart of understanding of contemporary art. The author offers the reader a wide selection of testimonials from artists, all deeply marked by personal reflection on art. What distinguishes Obrist is the absolute belief in the centrality of the word. With one exception, the reader will try in vain to find, in the 544-page volume, any photo or illustration of the artworks covered by those interviews. Dominates the sobriety of the verb, in the Biblical interpretation of the Reformed Evangelical church, which may be explained by the author’s background in Zurich. It is indeed a common feature in many of his works. The previous volumes of interviews of 2003 and 2010 contain talks with more than 150 personalities (not only artists), for a total of more than two thousand pages [2]. Well, none of these works have illustrations.

Obrist is at the very core of the production of contemporary art literature. He was responsible, in cooperation with other scholars, of the editions of the writings of key figures of today’s art like Gerhard Richter (The Daily Practice of Painting - Writings and Interviews 1962-1993, published in 1993) and Louise Bourgeois (Destruction of the Father / Reconstruction of the Father, published in 1998). The interview serves as core of his aesthetic reflection, exactly like the dialogue is the essence of Plato’s philosophy. I already made reference to the two volumes in 2003 and 2010, the result of transcription of hundreds of hours of interviews recorded on tape recorder. Obrist is also the curator of the Conversation Series, released by the publishing house of the Library Walther König in Cologne (one of the leading German publishers of art). This is a series of paperback books at low prices, each of which presents dialogues between Obrist himself and a prominent contemporary artist. Twenty-eight volumes were printed since 2007. For a list of the entire collection, see: http://www.artbook.com/huoconv.html.

Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Architects is therefore the recent attempt by Obrist to synthesize the immense documentary material that he managed to gather over the past decades. A useful appendix explains where the texts have been taken from. It is clear that this is an anthology drawn from his very numerous previous publications. Only in very few cases we are faced with new texts. In my opinion, this is an advantage, because it reflects the editor’s effort to make a careful choice within a search path which has been already mapped out, and not to add further material to such a dense bulk of texts. A synthesis is always, by its nature, a cruel task, especially for a personality with so vast interests and, most likely, caught in an endless curiosity, like that of Obrist. It would be easy, in fact, to catalogue the volume as a simple attempt to bear witness, through interviews, of the extreme diversity of the experiences of artists in times marked by opposing cultural experiences. One could even see the choice to publish yet another anthology of interviews (and not an essay) almost as a new proof that the world of contemporary art, in its unlimited polystylism, can in no way be reduced to any unit. I do not think, however, that this is the most accurate key to read the book.

Of course, many questions are legitimate. Who is at the centre of the anthology? Are the artists and architects, or the interviewer? Does Obrist merely propose evidence of a shapeless galaxy of artists, or does he trace the perimeter of an intellectually multipolar world, irreducible to unity, or does he even try to define a coordinate system for a uniform interpretation of art in our time? Is the author's intention to present several medallions of the Lives of the authors or to show the reader a coherent idea of ​​art creation in recent decades? Are we confronted with an essentially journalistic work - documenting meetings with artists - or with an essay on art in the form of dialogue, albeit with interlocutors who change from time to time? Personally, reading the book a couple of times led me to prefer this second option. The repetition of several questions, the cross reiteration of some themes, the insistence on some interpretations of art creation reveal a systematic thinking, which is the result of a stratification of experiences, some of which dating back to early adolescence. I can certainly be wrong, and I would be really interested to hear the opinion of the author on it. Obrist has often said: "It is not about me, but about the artists." Still, his personality - as interviewer - of course remains central during the reading of the Lives.

Switzerland and cosmopolitanism - in search of new cross-cultural art

As Vasari wants to prove that art has a regional dimension, with the prevalence of Tuscany in the process of rebirth of art, also in Obrist geography has an important role: not to identify a single origination centre, but on the contrary to extend the discussion to the entire surface area of ​​the planet. His thesis is in fact that total art must par excellence also be global art. Indeed, it must be a cross-cultural art, meaning that artists do not need to export the model of the Northern Hemisphere (Europe and USA) but to aim at a real fusion between continents. This is proven by the decision of the author to include in the book interviews with artists and architects from everywhere around the world - putting Africa, Asia and Latin America in the same position as Europe and the United States - and especially with frequent travellers, with expatriates, with figures which may hardly be "classified" as culturally belonging to one region. Not surprisingly, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Paris Obrist directed the "Programme Migrateurs" since 1993, when he was then twenty-five, at a time when the French public opinion was split on the law of the Ministry of Interior Charles Pasqua to expel illegal immigrants, the so-called sans papiers. Obrist assigns art the task of creating a network of local and global relations, to trace a web of contiguity passing through real personal acquaintances, but also along unexpected paths, simple curiosity, and sometimes random affinity (Goethe spoke of Wahlverwandschaften, Elective Affinities.) The interviews document a world where artists constantly cross borders, physically and mentally, for many different reasons. Some examples: the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas makes him wait an entire day in the Netherlands, and going out late at night from his studio apologizes, explaining that it is impossible to make the interview, as he is just leaving for China. Obrist’s reaction is impeccable:  he leaves for Asia with the first available flight from Amsterdam and the following evening gets the interview in a hotel in Hong Kong. The two became great friends. Another case is the Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, who returned to Iran in 2004 after living several years in the United States - first in the 40s and then immediately after the Khomeini revolution - in full harmony with the American avant-garde (Pollock, Stella, Warhol and many others), and therefore strongly linked to two worlds which are opposed to each other and even rival. I would also mention the South African black artist Ernest Mancoba, who gets a scholarship in France in the 1940s, meets a group of young Danish artists and becomes atypical part of the Scandinavian art world (participating in all the vicissitudes of European art during and after World War II). Finally, Obrist is known to be traveling for a good part of his time, sleeping very little and eagerly reading any work written by artists before, possibly, to contact them to ask them for an interview.

In the recent essay Ways of curating, Obrist narrates how her Swiss roots influenced his cultural education during the teenage years, when he was still a high school student. Switzerland can be a very local world, and in some cases very jealous of its own characteristics and even closed to outside influences. And yet, for its multiculturalism, Switzerland can also be a - very small - laboratory of an open and interactive world. Consider, in the years before the Second World War, the discovery of the Parisian and the Munich avant-garde by Paul Klee, and the role that Zurich had to the launch of surrealism by Hans Arp. Yet sixteen year old, Obrist does not hesitate to seek contact with the pair of Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss (workwise known as Fischli / Weiss) [4]. That same year, he takes advantage of a school trip to Paris to visit the French artist Christian Boltanski. From the first ones he learns that the experience of Duchamp is still vital: art can still be based on everyday objects. From the second he learns that the role of the curator is to create new rules of the game for each exhibition [5]. Years later, in 1991, he will organize his first exhibition with these artists, in the kitchen of his private house, which he never used to eat. In fact, Boltanski suggests transforming this "useless" place for life into a "useful" place for art. The Boltanski rule is applied strictly, to the point that some of the exhibitions curated by Obrist (like the famous series of exhibitions "Do it", which was attended by fifteen artists) are based on instructions received from the exhibited artists, but these guidelines are often intentionally interpreted differently by the curators in every place where the exhibition is held.

After the trip to Paris, a year later, the school organises a trip to Rome, and this allows the seventeen-year old Hans Ulrich to visit Alighiero Boetti [6], on the advice of Fischli / Weiss. Obrist receives some suggestions from him that will mark his activity: a curator should not simply provide a space for artists. He should talk to them and question them about what are the projects that they have not yet managed to achieve. This is a question that Obrist will always ask to all his counterparts, explaining his insistence in two ways: there is always an element of creativity in every failure and, secondly, the task of the curator is to help the artist to realize unfulfilled dreams. During the return trip, in the couchette, Obrist decides that offering artists the opportunity to achieve their projects will be the focus of his life, and that interviews will become the essential genre to reach the achievement of this result. His career follows however an atypical path. Instead of continuing his studies in art schools, he joins the faculty of economy of St. Gallen. This explains, for example, why - in his interviews with the artists - he discusses the merits and the crisis of European integration, globalization and terrorism with them.

In short, without Swiss multiculturalism, the curiosity of an adolescent, the courtesy of the artists in front of a young unknown and above all without the school trips in the couchette trains across Europe, today we could not read one of the most monumental works of documentation of contemporary art.

New universality, new humanism

I already referred to the centrality of the word. Obviously, since here it is about interviews, it is not only about the centrality of written words, but also of spoken language. Indeed rhetoric recovers its dignity of art, with the 24-hour marathon interviews that Obrist organizes at the Serpentine Gallery in London, of which he is co-director since 2006, during the month of October. These marathons become essential events of the cultural life of London. Marathons (which reached their tenth edition this year) are events during which Obrist asks a series of artists to uninterruptedly liaise with the public during the course of an entire day. All documentation on the ten marathons is available at http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/explore/marathon. The last marathon, held last Oct. 17, 2015, was dedicated to the theme of transformation. [7]

The Serpentine Gallery also became a place of experimentation in the relationship between architecture and art, a relationship that is considered a key problem of Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Architects. Every year (for fifteen years, so even before the arrival of Obrist) the Gallery commissioned a famous architect to design a pavilion for the exhibition of the art works (for 2015 see http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/serpentine-pavilion-2015). One of the central themes of the book is the role of architecture in the exposition of art works, and the role of the curator as an organizer of the necessary dialogue between architects and artists to respond to sometimes divergent needs.

End of Part One
Go to Part Two 

NOTES

[1] In fact, the Lives of Vasari were recently fully translated into German; they were divided into 45 short texts pocket for easy dissemination among the readers.

[2] Obrist, Hans Ulrich with Raza, Asad - Ways of Curating, London New York, Allen Lane, 2014, p. 180.

[3] Obrist, Hans Ulrich - Interviews, Volume 1, Charta Publishers, Milan, 2003, p. 967 e Hans Ulrich Obrist, Interviews, Volume 2, Charta Publishers, Milan, 2010, p. 956.

[4] “My first visit to their studio became my eureka moment. I was born in the studio of Fischli and Weiss: that is where I decided to curate exhibitions, though I had been looking at artworks, collections and exhibitions for most of my adolescence. Fischli and Weiss, masters of questioning, were also the first to ask me what else I had seen, and what I thought of what I had seen, and so I began to develop a critical consciousness, a drive to explain and justify my reactions to art – to enter into a dialogue. Because of their work’s extraordinary range, I also began to think much more globally. Through their work, Fischli and Weiss expanded my definition of art – and this is perhaps the best definition of art: that which expands the definition. Their friendship and the interest they took in me began a kind of chain reaction that has never stopped.” Obrist, Hans Ulrich with Raza, Asad - Ways of Curating, quoted, p.5.

[5] “Boltanski was very clear on one point that has become one of my guiding principles: exhibitions, he said, should always invent a new rule of the game. People only remember exhibitions that invent a new display feature, he pointed out, and so that should be an ambition of each new exhibition.” Obrist, Hans Ulrich with Raza, Asad - Ways of Curating, quoted,p. 79.

[6] “Boetti told me that if I wanted to curate exhibitions, then I should under no circumstances do what everybody else was doing – just giving the artists a certain room and suggesting that they fill it. What would be more important would be to talk to the artists and ask them which projects they could not realize under existing conditions.” Obrist, Hans Ulrich with Raza, Asad - Ways of Curating, quoted, p.  10.

[7] See also: Obrist, Hans Ulrich with Koolhaas, Rem - London Dialogues, Serpentine Gallery 24-Hour Interview Marathon, Milan, Skira Publishers, 2012, p. 377.