Obrist Quotes

Whatever you do, do something else.

The very idea of an exhibition is that we live in a world with each other, in which it is possible to make arrangements, associations, connections and wordless gestures, and, through this mise en scène, to speak.

I have always believed that it is the artist who creates a work, but a society that turns it into a work of art. - Johannes Cladders

I don't believe in the creativity of the curator. I don't think that the exhibition-maker has brilliant ideas around which the works of artists must fit. Instead, the process always starts with a conversation, in which I ask the artists what their unrealized projects are, and then the task is to find the means to realize them.

1) Choose a person, older than yourself, you see frequently — not too often by approx once a week or once a month. Maybe one of your grandparents if they are still alive. 2) Every time you meet the chosen person you press your 2 pointing-fingers firmly against your eyes for 10 to 20 seconds until various colors and patterns arise. 3) Try to note or memorize the patterns and colors in connection with the context and repeat the practice every time you meet the chosen person for a as long as possible, minimum 6 months. 4) After minimum 6 months of this practice you can recall the person, virtually by pressing your eyes for a while. In the midst of the colors and pattern a sense of presence of the chosen person arrives even after the chosen person has died.

Very often, in the visual arts, if you take the first work of a visual artist, it already includes almost everything they do later.

I think that one of the things I have always found most attractive about art and music and culture is the experience of how it can change one's thinking. This has always been the big pay-off for me. - Tony Conrad

Obrist uses a hypothetical example of a couple that just had a fight in the morning before going to work. While in a meeting, the woman receives a gentle sensation transmitted through her bracelet into the middle of her palm. The sensation comforts her and indicates that her partner is no longer angry.