Hans Ulrich Obrist

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hans Ulrich Obrist (Zurich, Switzerland, 1968) is a Swiss curator and art critic. In 1993, he founded the Museum Robert Walser and began to run the Migrateurs program at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris where he served as a curator for contemporary art. In 1996 he co-curated Manifesta 1, the first edition of the roving European biennial of contemporary art. He presently serves as the Co-Director, Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, in London.

He recently contributed a chapter to Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture (The MIT Press, 2008) edited by Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky. He also contributed work to the newborn Above magazine for its premiere/Summer 2009 issue. In the November 2009 issue of ArtReview magazine, Obrist was ranked number one in the publication's annual list of the art world's one-hundred most powerful people. Prolific interviewer, but writing few critical texts, his influence is mainly due to the fact that he operates close to the center of a network of artists, thinkers and agenda-setters, being one of the most well-networked figures in the contemporary art world.