Hans Ulrich Obrist on Art as a Portal to Liberate Time

The Swiss-born, London-based curator, art historian, and Serpentine Galleries artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist moves through his life and work with a deep internal sense of urgency. Among the most prolific and everywhere-all-at-once people in the world of art—whose peripatetic path has taken him from a sheltered upbringing in a small Swiss village to his current post in London at the Serpentine—Obrist has been curating shows for more than three decades. During this time, he has recorded conversations with thousands of artists, architects, and others shaping culture and society. He’s also the author of dozens of books, most recently Life in Progress, released in the U.K. this fall, with the U.S. edition coming out next spring.

On this episode, Obrist reflects on 25 years of the Serpentine Pavilion, which has become a defining annual moment in culture globally and a springboard for many of today’s leading voices in architecture, including Lina Ghotmeh (the guest on Ep. 129 of Time Sensitive) and Frida Escobedo, and his firm belief that we all need to embrace more promenadology—the science of a stroll—in our lives.

Special thanks to our Season 12 presenting sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes:

Hans Ulrich Obrist

[03:37] Brutally Early Club

[06:05] Frank Gehry

[06:35] Bettina Korek

[06:51] Luma Arles

[08:26] Pierre Boulez

[11:35] Etel Adnan

[18:03] Giorgio Vasari

[19:41] Ludwig Binswanger

[25:45] “Life in Progress”

[30:50] Peter Fischli & David Weiss

[31:27] Kasper König

[37:30] Maria Lassnig

[39:45] Serpentine Galleries

[40:30] Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris

[45:15] Serpentine Pavilion

[48:12] Frida Escobedo

[49:00] Lina Ghotmeh

[53:14] The FLAG Art Foundation

[53:38] Play Pavilion

[54:11] Serpentine General Ecology

[55:10] Serpentine Arts Technologies

[58:35] “Peter Doig: House of Music”

[1:00:34] “Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley: The Delusion”

[1:01:25] Édouard Glissant

[1:02:17] Umberto Eco

[1:08:56] Lucius Burckhardt

[1:09:33] Cedric Price

[1:08:13] Robert Walser