Nicolai Tangen: Hi everyone and welcome to In Good Company. I'm Nicolola Tangan and I am the CEO of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund and today I'm joined by Soi who I think probably is the world's greatest connector of ideas, people and art. Hans is the artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries in London and widely considered the best art curator in the world. you created unbelievable amounts of exhibitions and today we're going to tease out uh the business behind your success, creativity, how to connect with people um and what business can learn from all the kind of things you've done. So, warm welcome.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: Thank you. Very nice to see you.

Nicolai Tangen: What does an art creator actually do?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: Yeah, I've always um followed this definition the the writer JG Balad gave me when he didn't really understand what was my profession. And so I was describing it to him and he says, "So basically what you're doing is you're a junction maker. You create unexpected uh connections." And I think that's kind of what is at the core of of my practice. It's um uh bringing artworks together, uh bringing people together, um creating situations and uh using also the exhibition as a kind of a medium to create experiences.

Nicolai Tangen: What's the what's the key to create interesting experiences?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I mean I think the first probably most important u step is to listen. The the poet at the Latan said once that we sort of need to learn to listen again. Um and I think listening to artists is always the beginning. So I would go to studios. It's something I've been doing ever since I'm a teenager. When I was like 16, 17, I traveled all over Europe by night train and I went to see artists from Gahadria to um Rosemary to Luis Bour to Fish. So artists kind of all all over Europe initially and then also um outside Europe and um would just listen to them and um of course also kind of find out what they would like to do. So rather than to somehow squeeze their practice into a kind of a framework um it's to basically kind of listen what they've maybe not been able to do in the context of um um of the art world. So how we can basically change the art world or shift it slightly to make this artist dream become become a reality. So in a way it's a to come back to your initial question what is a curator? I think it's also about enabling about making things possible.

Nicolai Tangen: M now you put together things which weren't meant to be together often. Yeah. What's the key to get kind of diverse things to play together?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I mean I think the key is that is to not stop the serendipity because very often it's a chain reaction. Um and u um it's not necessarily a master plan. I think very often an exhibition has a checklist early on um and you know would say that's what we're going to do. It's very limited. I think we go on a churn. we going to the unknowable and on this path you know we have to be open for many different you know surprises. So one of my bigger projects of the last years has been my kind of handwriting project and that is an example for that you know these two little books and it's also my Instagram account and we basically I I was with um Ombberto Eko the writer and um uh and scholar and he was very old and he said basically we need to do something to save handwriting and so kind of left his apartment um uh with this task somehow and I wasn't of course qualified to do that because I'm not the calligrapher nor could I found a calligraphy school then um in a way I was with um the poet whom I quoted earlier who said that we have to learn to listen again and she also told me that we shouldn't sort of forget that handwriting matters and she started whilst we were in a cafe to write a very beautiful poem in her notebook and suddenly I realized I am with artists with poets with writers with architects every day so I could just ask them to write something and make my social media give it a mission no because in a Okay, I didn't really know what to do with Instagram and with social media. I knew that I, you know, didn't want it to be about selfies. I knew that it wanted to be my food. I didn't want it to be about my travels. It needed to have a mission, a purpose. And then I thought, wow, so I could actually do what Ombberto Eko told me. And and so in a way, it's the serendipity which leads to project. I think it's to be open and to be curious and let things flow.

Nicolai Tangen: Not many people uh actively believe in serendipity. I I I kind of love it because it brings out surprising things. What is your relationship to serendipity?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I think in a way um uh the idea of of of of of an encounter with artists um can lead us somewhere where we would never have thought or we would never think we could go. Um and I think that's what very often is the serendipity of of such project. But it's also I think the idea of going beyond short- termism. I think we live in a world which is very much sort of ruled by short-termist deadlines by by um by deadlines where for a certain moment or up to a certain moment something has to happen and that's of course true in in every field. It's also true in my field the exhibition has to open. Um but I think very often it's interesting that we uh go on a journey and that an exhibition has a longer life than that. Some some of my exhibitions have been evolving for more than 30 years. We started a project called do it where we where I ask artists to write instructions and recipes and um basically people museums people at home people everywhere in the world can interpret and can basically do the artwork themselves. Um and so that project has been on the road for yeah 33 years now and it's never stopped. There has always been a new version. It keeps learning. It keeps evolving. I think the idea also that exhibitions in a way uh don't start from this idea that they know everything that we kind of set up uh vehicles or structures which can learn is very important.

Nicolai Tangen: What's the recipe for a great exhibition?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I mean I don't think that there is one recipe. Um I think that um in a way an exhibition needs to um kind of come up with new rules of the game. needs to kind of come up with um new connections, new encounters, needs to create an experience we haven't had before. And very often it's also bringing disciplines together. I mean, for example, we've just had an exhibition at Serpentine of Peter Doy. And talking to the artists, we figured out that his desire is really to bring the world of art, painting, and music together. And little by little, we realized that it also includes poetry because he collaborated with poets. And so we created an exhibition um uh we invited him basically to create an exhibition at Serpentine where on the one hand he presented new paintings. At the same time he transformed the exhibition space into a a listening space. People could sit down, they could have a chat, they could have a conversation, they could also lie down and just chill. Um uh and they could listen to his music. They could listen to the music he has um basically in his studio. He plays in his studio. But they could also come for special events. There were these um uh basically sessions every Sunday. So it means that people came actually not only once to see the exhibition but all of a sudden you have people who came every Sunday who came every day to listen to new music and so in a way created a completely new experience and also in a way binds people to spend more time because on average people spend very little time in front of an artwork in a museum few seconds sometimes longer but I think it's interesting when we create an

Nicolai Tangen: Are you are you fast when you go through exhibitions because I'm I'm really fast

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I'm fast until I'm not if all of a sudden I'm fascinated then I spend a lot of time. So, it's kind of both.

Nicolai Tangen: What's your imprint on this? Where can we see Oberist in your exhibitions?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I mean, in terms of solar exhibitions, when we do solo exhibitions at Serpentine, we most of the time invite artists to take over the space and create their world and show, you know, their work as a kind of a world building. Then I think it's an enabling. making that possible. Um, it's of course very different with with group shows. With group shows, um, uh, the curator kind of defines in dialogue with the artists the rule of the game and we are working right now with, uh, my colleague Ben Vickers and, um, San Collective on the on the Vatican pavilion, the Holy Sea Pavilion for the Venice bean, which is going to open next month. Um and there we basically came up with this idea of um this interdisciplinary figure this saint Helia from Bingan um who lived in the 11th century and so many musicians and artists today are inspired by her composing by by her music by her writing by her by the way she connected also to nature by the way she kind of connected to healing because she was also a healer. Um so we decided to kind of um in dialogue with artists to create to sort of do a garden, a sound garden in Venice. It's a hidden garden near the railway station. Um and this garden is basically going to be accessible for the exhibition and visitors will will come there and listen to sound interpretations of 21st century artists from blood orange to to Patty Smith to the Bong Kanga. many different artists would interpret healing up for Bingan's work for today. So here we kind of you know would define um yeah a rule of the game in which then the different artists can intervene. So it depends a lot if it's a solo show or a group show.

Nicolai Tangen: Tell me about the importance of multiensory exhibitions. What does it do to the visitor? You mean when an exhibition addresses multiple senses? Yeah. What happen? How do you think how do you think about it? I mean how many how many senses do you want to engage? Um I mean and is more senses better.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I mean I think there never we can never say an exhibition has to be this or that way because each time it's a different situation. But I think if you want to bind the viewer um and if you want the viewer to spend more time in an exhibition it's important to appeal to to multiple senses definitely and I think that's something I mean the example of Peter dog is the case in poem. people spend hours they kept coming back and that's also what's happening for example with our experiments with technology uh when I joined the in 2006 we started to think about what um could be new departments and we started to basically uh introduce an ecological sort of department so as to say where we looked at environmental aspects of what the museum does but we also felt it would be important to kind of connect to technology because around 2012 2013 most Most of the museum work with technology happened maybe on the website but it wasn't really central in museums but it was clear that it would become a very important kind of dimension of art of the future. So we started kind of new experiments in in art and technology and many of these exhibitions are very multiensory. We created for example um exhibitions with video games because today more than uh three billion people play video games. Um it's what was a niche medium has become one of the lead mediums of our time. Uh many visual artists are engaging with that medium. So we created kind of mixed reality installation physical installations by artists with video game components and that again um exhibitions for example of Gabriel Masan and also Daniel Bra Charlie and others. These exhibitions really bind the view and visitors spend a lot of time and it also brought in a completely new generation of kind of visitors who otherwise wouldn't visit the museum. So we also kind of think in relation to that it's interesting um to create new alliances to kind of connect because obviously museums always work with other museums but we think it's interesting to create new alliances also with brands with companies in technology. So, for example, for the cause exhibition, we partnered up with Fortnite. And that partnership meant that all of a sudden, Serpentine was on the landing page of Fortnite, and we had in two weeks 150 million visitors on that space, which is more than any exhibition we've ever done. And that brought us a lot of visitors into the physical space. The same exhibition basically happened in the virtual space on Fortnite. And in the physical space, the physical paintings were actually in the gallery. And all of a sudden, you know, teenagers brought their parents to the serpentine, which in a way otherwise would be the other way around. Or also the same thing happened with K-pop. We did a whole collaboration with BTS and K-pop and and the young artist Yakinson U and all of a sudden the world of contemporary art in the world of K-pop came together.

Nicolai Tangen: Yeah. Are the best artists also the most technically accomplished or using modern technology in a better way? Is there a correlation there? because I I remember I saw you know a Hacknne exhibition where he had uh drawn on on iPads right you remember that probably from the Royal Academy.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: Yeah. At the moment we we actually show an exhibition of David Hawkney at at Sentime which just um which just opened um and it's there until um early September late August. He's always gone beyond paintings. He's a painter who always had the curiosity to go into other fields. So he wrote secret knowledge which is a book. Um at the same time he worked with opera, he worked with opera sets and theater sets at this and then he always came back to painting. And then I would say uh already in the 80s he was very fascinated by technology but it was too slow for him. um that drawing was still faster. But then around 2006 7 8 9 I don't remember exactly the year but about approximately 20 years ago 18 years ago he started to all of a sudden really experiment more with technology and then he started to make these extraordinary works on the iPad and um uh initially it was flowers and then landscapes and it really intensified when during the lockdown he was in Normandy in France and he created this amazing work a year in Normandy and it's of course a very physical deeply embodied piece because it's printed it fills the gallery It's a panorama. It's in a way uh an homage to Bayer. One can say it's inspired by the tapestry of Bayer. So it's interesting because later this year is now coming to the British Museum. Coming to the British Museum. So our show is is is basically uh ending when that starts. So it's kind of um a segue almost and uh for for Hawkney it was very inspiring to to visit the the tapestry um of Bayer. He created hundreds of works outdoors a bit like Monet. Um the impressionist would paint plan. Hawkchney was Planire but he wasn't there with the easel and the paint. He was there with his iPad and he was basically uh painting and then combined about a hundred of these works into one very long work which is inspired by Bayer and which is basically going around the corners of the space. So one has to walk in order to experience it. Um and then at the same time, you know, he would return again to um to painting as he always did. And in the two powder rooms in Serbentine North, the two central spaces, there are two new paintings. So yeah, that's definitely uh it's a very physical experience, but it's been created using technology and it took him a long time to basically learn how to use

Nicolai Tangen: what's going to be the function of AI in in art.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I think it's interesting right now to see how many artists are working with AI and we we started of course when we 12 years ago began these experiments in in in art and technology at at Serpentine we quite early on also focused on AI. Last year we had an exhibition of Holly Hearn and Matt Ryhurst and they worked with uh choirs all over the UK. Uh they created a book of hymns. Uh and this is the book of hymns basically which then was interpreted by these different choirs. Um and the choirs kind of are forming um or these recordings are forming a data set. Um and visitors could actually experience this data set because normally one wouldn't see and understand how a data set actually works. It's kind of but does it matter for you whether art is created by AI or people? I think it's always both. I mean in the case of Hollyhand and Matt Ryhers, the artist worked with people and um it was a collaborative situation with AI and and what was interesting is that I mean power clay once said that art makes the invisible visible and and and in a way a lot of kind of AI functions we use we don't really understand and don't really know. They're kind of um uh opaque. We don't really understand how it works. and they really wanted to um make the process of forming a data set visible or audible uh for the viewer. And then I think at the same time um choirs are a very old coordination technology know and AI is a form of coordination technology. So they created that connection. Um and uh interestingly enough um it was for the for the for the viewer uh or for the visitor who you know who came to Satan and experience this AI work the call of Holly Hondan and Matt Ryhurst also a way to understand how actually artists can use a data set and AI ethically and the same thing also happened with Rafi Ganadol. I mean Rafi Ganador created this very immersive installation um in close collaborations of course also with Google he's been collaborating with them for a long time with Nvidia and he created um uh very big data sets but all ethically sourced Smithsonian from National Geographic so I think it's it's interesting also how artists can set an example how how how AI data sets can be ethically sourced

Nicolai Tangen: let's talk about relationships what is what is key to establishing good relationships with artists.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: Um I think relationship with artists are about liberating time. I think it's it's it's something which always begins with a a studio visit. It begins with a a long conversation. So I think it's something which is has to do also with attention to and you and you visit you visit them typically in the galleries. I would make studio visits. I mean, some artists don't have a physical studio, then we meet in a cafe, but that's also a studio visit. Yeah, I do that. I do that every day. How many artists have you visited? I mean, I've been doing it for since 1986 because I started when I was a teenager. So, it's been 40 years. Um, so if you would think that on average I visit the studio a day, it's 40 times 365. It's a lot, huh? You also record some of your conversations. Yeah, I started at a certain moment uh in the early 90s to to record them. I mean, initially because I didn't really remember everything artist told me, but also because I started to think that maybe it could be interesting for the future as a document to have the voices uh recorded. I basically was very inspired by Vazari and how Vazari wrote the lives of the artists and wrote the lives of the architects. I was very inspired by the book of So this was during the Renaissance. Yeah. the Renaissance and then more recently David Sylvester who um in the 20th century would talk again and again to artists like Philip Gustin or Francis Bacon as a matter of fact he did a whole book of his conversations with Francis Bac incredible book and it's an incredible book and I read that book as a teenager and I started to think you know because I have this long I started to have this long-term relationship with artists that I could maybe do something similar I could sort of record and I mean today I've it's It's the archive is about 4,500 hours. So, it it is a data set.

Nicolai Tangen: What what are they? So one question I always ask is is the question about the unrealized projects because I do think it's very interesting. I mean I think we we all not only in the art world we all do have unrealized projects and it's interesting that um it's only in very few professions that actually these archite these unrealized projects are being published. I mean architects do publish them because the competition uh culture in a way the architectural competition very often leads to them being published. Uh but we know very little about poets, visual artists, um filmmakers but I suppose also in your field we at the end of the day they don't know don't know a lot about CEOs and unrealized projects. So so I think it's interesting but what can we learn what can we learn from them? So let's say now uh we interview a co hey what is your unrealized project? What what do you think we can learn from that concept?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I think what we can learn is now it's an interesting question what we can learn from it but I think in terms of artists what we can definitely learn is um what maybe we need to kind of look at at the range of of the unrealized projects. I think there there are many different types of unrealized projects. There are certain projects which are too big to be realized. There are certain projects which are too time intense to be realized. There are certain projects which are maybe unrealizable. They're autotopias, their dreams. There are certain projects which are censored. That can be a reason for it not be realized. And then of course there is also projects which are self-censored. Thor is lessing the writer always said one category not to be underestimated is the selfcensorship projects we would like to do but don't dare to do. Well, I mean in terms of the art world, very often artists have projects outside um their kind of daily routine because they're basically invited to be in bianials. Artists are invited to do gallery shows. They're invited to do museum shows. Um they're invited to participate in in collection exhibitions. Uh but but very often they have projects outside these parameters. Uh and these are very often the most interesting projects. And so then we need to think how could we how could we make them happen? you know, of course, the the obvious followup here is what is your unrealized project? Yeah, so my my unrealized project, uh, there's it's a long list because I think a lot of exhibitions, you know, um, I wanted to do early on fell through and I still one way or the other would like to do some of them. Um, the Hilig Bingham project we're doing now with uh, Ben Wickers and and the Soundwalk collective and these different artists is one of these unrealized projects. We always wanted to do something about heap from Bingan. that's now happening. Um I always always also felt having organized many exhibitions, worked in museums, um being the artistic director of an institute at Serpentine, I've always been thinking, you know, what is missing in the art world. What and and I think what is really missing today is a kind of a new Black Mountain College. What is missing is what is that? Uh the Black Mountain College was this extraordinary school in in the US after the Second World War. uh Ysef Albustard there u cage um Bachminster Fuller it was a very interdicciplinary moment where art architecture music science it all sort of came together and I think today uh there is a real necessity for such a for such a school I think it's it's and that's something we're starting to work on because learning power jobs um basically um um save this um uh this building, the San Francisco Art Institute. Um when that ended, you know, there was um a very big question what it would become in the future and it has this Diego Rivera painting and she decided to actually buy it and then um guarantee that it would be um a school, you know, for the future and ask me to work with her together on ideas how such a school could be. And so that's definitely uh a still unrealized project which now will be realized which I think can be very exciting.

Nicolai Tangen: What's your advice to a young artist? What's your advice to a young curator? What's your advice to a young practitioner?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: My favorite question is about the unrealized project because I think it's interesting what people would like to do outside the box outside their parameters in which they work because I think very often people have dreams people have unrealized project which uh they would want to do but they're somehow caught in the daily routine or maybe they're caught also by the parameters of their industry and very often these projects you know could actually be very exciting. Then I think the second question which I always ask is uh what's your advice to a young artist? What's your advice to a young curator? What's your advice to a young practitioner? Uh the kind of Rhina Maria question know when he wrote this wonderful little book which is an advice to a a young poet. Um I would say another question I always ask is uh who were your mentors? what what what was the most important message you received from a mentor? Um, another question I always ask is the way a practitioner connects to other practitioners. So, have they been part of a group? Have has this group had a manifesto? Are the individual practitioners outside a group? It's interesting because obviously in my archive of um more than 4,000 hours, a lot of the conversations connect to each other. Uh and so it's interesting you know how artists connect to other artists. Do you connect to other creators? Yeah, definitely. I've always had conversations with with colleagues from the beginning. I mean initially with people who are much much older than me. I mean I was very lucky to have these great mentors. Uh and I think mentorship is super important. I think that we can mentor the next generation and that's what happened when I began. I had you know mentor in Kasper Kernig and in Suzan Pash two great professionals who were like 20 30 years older than me and and taught me how taught me the profession in a way. Yeah. You started to travel around and meeting uh artists when you were a teenager. What would you have told your young person then your young self? Um the advice. Yeah, it's interesting because I've just written a text about that. I need to find it. uh of seven points which um uh how much do you actually write because here I got uh six books and I think you all written them recently um and you know I did I did read your life in progress book over Christmas and I totally loved it. Thank you. But how much do you write? Yeah about um I mean a way I I always write early in the morning when I I kind kind of wake up and then I try to liberate some time in the morning before going to the office. Uh I I do some spots and then I write and uh so I I try to write a little bit every every day. Uh and then of course you publish a book how often? Maybe seven books a year. Seven books a year. Yeah. But lots of them are conversation books. Yeah. Sure. So what did you write about? Yeah. So the advice um to a young curator or creator is kind of a DIY idea that the work can start anywhere to be curious and learn constantly. I think to build long-term relationships. You asked me before about relationships. I think it's important that these are lasting evolving dialogues with artists and other practitioners. I think a protest against forgetting that that's also why I record these conversations because I think we live in a age where we have more more information but that doesn't necessarily mean that we have more memory. Uh so um the protest against forget forgetting the protest against forgetting to embrace collaboration I think to facilitate and foster new alliances and to to be global and and local um at the same time I think is is maybe another important aspect. Um and then uh I think to follow what excites you and meet it with enthusiasm and probably most importantly that generosity is at the core of everything. I know that in a way my advice would always be to someone to to kind of be generous to kind of have almost like generosity as a medium.

Nicolai Tangen: Is a big difference between the various parts of the world or is art becoming more one global movement?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: Yeah, that is um that is a very that is kind of complex. I think in a way um um artist is I mean we live in an age which is has more and more homogenizing forces of globalization and we kind of have a a counter reaction to that. We can see which are new localisms which are which is a lack of tolerance which are new nationalisms. Um so I think we've got these two extremes now. We've got the extreme globalization and the extreme counter reaction. Um and and I think the most interesting practices right now do what the Martiniken philosopher Edward Lissa who has always been a big inspiration for me called mandalite. They kind of negotiate um um they negotiate ways of working which are kind of enabling a global dialogue but at the same time are deeply locally anchored in a way. So they resist the homogenizing forces of globalization but they also don't fall into this trap that um one goes from the local into the localist and no longer is open for a global dialogue. He gisson calls this mandial. So I think that's what the you you read him every morning I gather. Yeah, exactly. That's a ritual. One of my rituals because I exactly that's one of the reasons why because I want to think every morning how we can contribute to this to this idea of mandalite through through you read the same pages every day or you read different No, he's got a very big body of work. He's written poems. He's written novels. Um he's written a very beautiful novel called Storius where about the people um whose identity is really defined through relations and then uh uh at the same time he's also written um um he's written on art. It's a very very big big body of work. We can always find new texts.

Nicolai Tangen: What can uh business people learn from the art world?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I think there are many things. I think uh of course artists are are really good at pivoting and I think today we live in an environment where it's more more difficult to predict the future. So I think in a way the way you know artists work with the unknowable the way artists work also um with questions of a modern with answers is something I think which can be very relevant today. uh uh and I think it's interesting um in the 60s there was this idea of uh of John Leam and Barbara Stvini um where they had this idea of APG they had this idea of an artist placement group where they thought that every governmental structure but also every company and every corporation should have an artist in residence and maybe also an artist on the board and I think the time has come that we should realize that I think it would be very exciting.

Nicolai Tangen: Do you ever think about the fact that you have to sell tickets? I mean, we are at the Serpentine, uh, we have free admission. We're in a park. We're in Kensington Gardens, and we want the experience to be for everyone. So, we've always had, um, free admissions, but we um, we of course think a lot about visitor figures. We want the experience to be there for as many people as possible. We Does that influence how you what shows you put on? The fact that you need to have visitors.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I think the program has to be a mix. Um I mean for our CEO, for Betina Cor, for myself, for the teams, what is really important is that we have moments where we can show extremely well-known artists like um David Hawkney or last year Peter Doy or uh soon to come next year Lisa Bryce alongside younger emerging practitioners. And I think that sort of a good program in the museum is a mix of that. It's a mix of new unexpected position where visitors can basically discover artists they haven't seen before and at the same time they can see artists maybe they already know but from a different unexpected angle. So it's about finding the right balance, finding the right mix. No, but also the program because I think in your questions I really like that question about what makes a good program. No, and I think what you just your question leads in a way to that. It's the question of what makes a good program in an institution. I think it's about finding the right mix between very well-known artists whom one shows from an unexpected angle, new artists whom visitors can discover. Um but then at the same time also if you want to understand the forces which are effective in art, um it's important to to somehow also understand what's happening in other disciplines. And that's also why for us for example it's very important that we have this dimension with architecture. know because we we I mean if we look at Vazari in the Renaissance lives of the artists and lives of the architect which is the book which is somehow the reason why I became a curator because as a teenager um I would always read it and read it and I was like thinking I mean Mazari's book kind of gave me the idea that one could meet the artists of our time because that wasn't an obvious idea initially but all of a sudden I kind of realized there actually amazing artists out there of our time and I could go and meet them and that prompted when I was 1617 this idea of visiting studios quite feverishly um all over all over Europe of course also having been so inspired by this book means that I always felt that we need in a program in a museum to kind of connect art and architecture and uh and that's what we do with our pavilion we are now in the 26th year and initially when the program started when uh Julia Pton Johns began it in 2000 with Zah had so the pavilion program began uh in the 2000 with Zah hadid. Um it was really about artists who haven't built in in London before, who haven't built in the UK and that is still the rule of the game. But initially it was very well-known artist because it's interesting that London is such a global city for many different things for business for for for many art forms. But it's interesting it has also produced London has produced uh an extraordinary generation or several extraordinary generations of architects. If you think of um Zah Hadid of if you think of Norman Foster, if you think of Richard Rogers, if you think of David Chipperfield, if you think of the Agramground group, if you think of uh Mustavis, they think of um Cedric Price and and then right so it's an amazing it has an amazing architecture scene here, but it was always quite closed for architects from abroad to build and that's really what the Serpentine Pavilion tried to do from the beginning. it's inviting international architects for the first time to build here and open the discourse. Um but then of course uh at a certain moment after about 12 years in 2012 I I joined the Gary in 2006 and then around 2012 we realized that the scheme had become very well known and it would actually be a great opportunity now to open it up for a younger generation of architects. So we invited Sufu Jimoto was the first younger architect we invited who just last year he's become very well known since and has done the Ozaka the famous ring the biggest wood structure ever built. Uh the year after we invited the Chilean architects Millian Radich who just was announced um last months to have won the Pritskar prize this year. Um uh and so that was 12 uh 12 2012 13 14 and so over the last um so 12 13 14 years we've continued in that direction we've invited uh younger emerging practitioners and uh uh that means we could also through that make the architecture discourse more diverse more open invite more female architects it's fascinating for example that um architects like Freda Sceddo um uh Olina Gotme whom invited now went on to build very big to win very big competitions. Uh Nina got me won the British museum competition. Fao is building a foreign ministry in Qatar is also building a new metropolitan wing. Um Sumaya Bali was the youngest architect we've invited. She was 29 when we invited her is now building is now involved in a very important bridge project. So you were part of you you were basically part of making them famous. Yeah. And in a way it it it allows us to bring art and architecture together in an institution. And now it allows us also sometimes to have artists who actually have a desire to work with architecture to do the pavilion. For example, Olaf Elason or also Theiaster Gates were the artists who did the pavilion or last year Marina Tabas from Bangladesh and this year it's a very young office from Mexico at that happens concurrently to what we do with visual art. And then we do the same thing with poetry. We connect a lot to poetry. We do the same thing also uh with music as explained with Peter D. So in a way we also believe that in a good program or in a in a in a museum program we need to show the visual art in connection to the other art forms.

Nicolai Tangen: How do you continue to reinvent yourself in my own work?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I mean it's a permanent process I think of u of reinvention because I think every conversation I mean that's also the amazing thing of working with artists is that it's very transformative. No, when we do a project with an artist we are no longer the same person afterwards. It it we have to allow to be changed by it. So I would say the reinvention happens each single time when there is a collaboration with an artist. Yeah. And how should um how should we go about learning and reinventing ourselves based on exhibitions and art and music and poetry? What is the key as as somebody who visits exhibitions or like just how should we think about how should we think about our lives and our learning? Yeah. Yeah. I suppose um the the the most important thing in terms of um in terms of reinvention is openness. No, I suppose very often a lack of openness prevents us from that somehow. Are we less open than we were in the past? I think we always need to be more open. I think there is a a tendency of of um um yeah I think particularly um fear of of taking risk um is is certainly something which um um because of course exhibitions which try to be new experiments um can also fail. you know ex it's it's if an exhibition is a routine I've always believed in I mean when I did my first exhibition in the kitchen um you were old you were yeah I was like in my early 20s I had already traveled and made all these studio visits and then invited um artists to um to exhibit in in my kitchen and and uh 20 29 people came over over three months and u the exhibition happened also in the fridge and uh And it was obviously a risk and and it was also a very big excitement because it was the first time and I always felt that with every exhibition it has to be that way you know it cannot be a routine because if it becomes a routine uh you know something gets lost.

Nicolai Tangen: How much do you sleep more now than before?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: Uh so so basically I had different experiments with sleep. Uh so initially when I began I wanted to write many books and so I was inspired by Balzac because Balzac had this rhythm that he drank up to 50 coffees every day and then um um and I realized that that's not really sustainable. I did it for about six months and it was actually quite productive but not sustainable. I mean Bzak also died in his 50s so it wasn't sustainable. Then I found out that there was the Dainci rhythm and the Dainci rhythm is basically um to sleep every three hours for 15 minutes and that proved to be very productive and uh also not not very stressful. I was quite quite somehow um um balanced whilst I did it but it didn't work when I started to have an office because obviously in an office we need to um we can't then after 3 hours suddenly lie down for 15 minutes. it would be wouldn't work or we have meetings and then it wouldn't work. So then I stopped the Dainci rhythm. Um and then at a certain moment I realized that I needed because um uh I think we all have an inno kind of rhythm and I needed about six six and a half hours sleep. So then I came up with this idea of having a night assistant um uh a night producer. So um always after dinner in the evening from sort of 10:30 to 11:30 I would work another hour with the night producer and who would then um realize correspondence or transcriptions or editing overnight and in the morning when I wake up it's done and so since since I have this system in place I can sleep. You have it still? Yeah. So you have somebody you have like an assistant who works during the night for you. Yeah. So it's a 24h hour. So you are like a totally international business machine and a proper IBM. No, it's also it's it's kind of it's also quite creative and productive because in a way I get another hour work done in the evening uh and when I wake up in the morning a lot of things are done.

Nicolai Tangen: What is driving you?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I think what is driving me I think that we live in a world I mean the departure point of what what is driving me was and still is that I want to work with artists and and realize their projects and and enable their projects and and support artists and and uh uh and their visions no so that's and that's a driving force which never went away but I think in addition to that there is another driving force I think we live in a world which is increasingly polarized and separated and people don't talk to each other and I think it's super important that we have situations where we can bring people together and and I think that's what exhibitions can do I think that's what we're trying to do with our program at at Serpentine that's what I tr try to do with all my exhibitions um and uh I think that idea of um also breaking down silos and and uh and bringing different fields of knowledge together going beyond the fear of pulling knowledge. I think that's very much a driving force.

Nicolai Tangen: Well, you broken down more silos than most people and you also created more shows and created more pleasure in life than anybody else I know. So, big thank you.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: Thank you very much.