Life in Progress

De: Hans Ulrich Obrist

The intimate, inspiring memoir of a “curator extraordinaire” (The Guardian)—part unputdownable coming-of-age story, part insider’s tour of the contemporary art world, part user’s manual on how to live a life driven by curiosity, conversation, and coincidence

“A few years ago, ArtReview named him the most powerful figure in the field, but Obrist . . . seems less to stand atop the art world than to race around, up, over, and through it.”—The New Yorker

When Hans Ulrich Obrist was six years old, he was knocked down by a speeding car as he was crossing the street. The weeks he spent recovering in the hospital instilled a sense of urgency in him—and opened his eyes to the healing powers of art. By 1985, when he was sixteen, he was making pilgrimages to artists' studios, traveling across Europe on night trains. Before long, he was visiting hundreds each year.

Today recognized as one of the most influential figures in the global art world, Obrist is famed for his “terrifying work ethic” (Financial Times), having curated more than 350 exhibitions, recorded more than 2,000 hours of interviews with artists, and mounted 24-hour “marathon” cultural events at London’s Serpentine Galleries.

In Life in Progress, Obrist takes us through the formative experiences that made him into the art world legend he is today. As an inquisitive child in a small Swiss town in the 1970s, he found refuge in books; as a university student, he curated his first-ever exhibition—hosted in his kitchen and attended by no more than thirty people—and sent 250 postcards to strangers across the art world when he was stranded by an avalanche. Later, when he took over the Serpentine Galleries in London, he pushed the boundaries of what—and who—museums are for, by bringing art outside the four walls of the gallery.

Featuring encounters with giants of the art scene from Gerhard Richter and Louise Bourgeois to Etel Adnan and Agnes Varda, Life in Progress is an enchanting and deeply personal ode to art, the people who make it, and its capacity to change lives.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Given his knowledge, you might expect an encounter with this curator to be daunting. . . . Now, however, as Obrist publishes his latest book, Life in Progress, we get the chance to meet him on less frenetically intellectual terms. . . . It invites us to discover the person behind the polymath.”—The Times Magazine

“Invigorating . . . [Obrist] writes persuasively of his passion for connecting to the world through art and his desire to enable others to do the same. . . . Readers will be inspired.”—Publishers Weekly

“Much of the charm of the book is in [Obrist’s] first encounters with artists. . . . The memoir partly doubles as an elegy for an analogue art world of letters, postcards, and serendipitous encounters on the street.”—Frieze

“To understand Obrist, you have to go back to [his upbringing in] Weinfelden.”—Financial Times

“Hans Ulrich Obrist is one of the most famous guides to the world of contemporary art. In his new memoir, he shows the way.”—Prospect

“Life in Progress explor[es] how [Obrist’s] early life and a near-death experience in childhood fuelled an insatiable appetite for meeting artists and staging shows, from his own kitchen to world-class institutions.”—AnOther

“Throughout the short and succinct book, Obrist’s love of knowledge and forming connections is striking. . . . [Life in Progress] is a who’s who of the art world.”—Wallpaper

“[An] unconventional and entertaining memoir by a man often credited as the inventor of modern curation.”—Irish Times