Hans-Ulrich Obrist

“I always have coffee and porridge for breakfast.”

“Making art is not the matter of a moment, and nor is making an exhibition; curating follows art.”

“Alex Poots has always made a bridge between highly experimental and the mainstream.”

“For me, it's always been very essential to work on projects that one can work on almost for their entire life.”

“I started going to exhibitions in Switzerland when I was 10 or 11. As a schoolboy, I would go every afternoon to see the long, thin figures of Giacometti.”

“Switzerland felt incredibly narrow, growing up. It was good, in a way. There were so many museums. But it was always a no-brainer that I would have to leave, and I'm grateful for that.”

“There is nothing deeper than to work for a year with the same artist.”

“I would go from one city to the next, inspired by the monks in the Middle Ages, who would carry knowledge from one monastery to the next monastery.”

“I read whenever possible, and I buy books all the time, sometimes online, but mostly from bookshops. I love literature. If you want to understand art, it's important to understand what is also happening in literature, in music, in science, in architecture.”

“I still remember my first Giacometti exhibition, and going back to the museum every day, whenever I could, to look again and again at these long, thin stick figures, so beautiful, so graceful. That, I think, was the moment I became really obsessed by art.”

“I really do think artists are the most important people on the planet, and if what I do is a utility and helps them, then that makes me happy. I want to be helpful.”

“Since 2000, I've been based in Paris at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville, curating the programme there. Internationally, it's a very open situation that goes beyond national boundaries; directors and curators move from one country to another, which has opened up the museum landscape.”

“I spent 250 to 300 days of every year on the road. But in the end, I felt something was missing. I needed to be anchored so I could concentrate, so in 2000, I established a new methodology - the one I use today. I spent the week in my office and travelled every weekend, even at Christmas.”

“At Performa in New York, there are a lot of commissions, but Manchester Festival is the only festival where everything is fully produced by the festival.”

“The non-utility of my kitchen could be transformed into its utility for art. To do a show there would mix art and life, naturally.”

“I have many intense friendships with artists. I don't mean we have intense one-day conversations but ongoing conversations that last in some cases for years.”

“Our economy's growth functions by inciting us to produce more and more with each passing year. In turn, we require cultural forms to enable us to sort through the glut, and our rituals are once again directed towards the immaterial, towards quality and not quantity.”

“Exhibitions are kind of ephemeral moments, sometimes magic moments, and when they're gone, they're gone.”

“It's quite an obscure notion for a kid, no? To want to be a curator. But even then, I knew that I would do this.”

“I'm trying to expand the notion of curating. Exhibitions need not only take place in galleries, need not only involve displaying objects. Art can appear where we expect it least.”