Ways of Curating

The world’s most influential contemporary-art curator explores the history and practice of his craft Whether in London, New York, Zurich, or Beijing, no one in the art world today is more visible or more active than Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Since curating his first exhibit in his kitchen at age twenty-three, he has curated more than 250 shows internationally, creating some of the most influential exhibits of our age. There is no one better qualified to write about curation, and in Ways of Curating, he synthesizes his experience and research into the definitive treatise on this practice. In short, accessible chapters, Obrist traces the history of curation, from the nineteenth-century wunderkammer to the twenty-first century.

There are biographical sketches of a panoply of artists and thinkers, including figures as diverse as Sergei Diaghilev, Robert Walser, and Lucy Lippard. Obrist also describes his own trajectory and his idea of the curator as a facilitator between artists and audiences, leading him to discuss his collaborations with modern art luminaries such as Christian Boltanski, Rem Koolhaas, Cy Twombly, Gerhard Richter, Félix González-Torres, and Tino Sehgal.

“Curating” is a major buzzword today, and interest in the concept of curating, in the interaction between audiences and artworks, has never been greater. Ways of Curating is filled with insights for everyone from art professionals and students to casual museumgoers.