Hans-Ulrich Obrist

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.

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.

At a certain moment, when I started doing my own shows, I felt it would be really interesting to know what is the history of my profession. I realized that there was no book, which was kind of a shock.

When I was a kid and started to be obsessed by art in the 1980s, the art world was in this polarity Warhol/Beuys, Beuys/Warhol. Both expended the notion of art extremely, but in very different ways.

I met Gerhard Richter and Alighiero Boetti when I was a teenager, and I was really inspired by them. When Boetti died, I realized I only vaguely remembered so many things he told me. It was such a pity. Had I only recorded his voice, he would still be with me, and I could listen to it from time to time.

To record is a process against forgetting. I do interviews because it's what I've been doing every day for a few hours since I was a kid. I've always talked to artists.

For me, the making of exhibitions has always had to do with dialogue: a concentrated, in-depth, focused dialogue with artists, who keep teaching me that exhibitions should always invent new rules for the game.

In this new age of GPS, Google Earth and multidimensional digital maps, mapping is suddenly hugely relevant again.

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.

For me, the idea of curating can be expanded. Curating science, curating art, music and theater and performance and not only bring those things into art but bring art into those areas.

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.

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

Exhibitions usually are not collected; they disperse after they take place.

When I was 17, I met many artists, and it started to become this conversation with artists out of which all of my exhibitions grew.

Mr. Koons's work has always inspired architects, which I think is very interesting. I think he is an artist who has reinvented himself so many times and reinvented so many different series.

From 1991 to 2000, I was totally nomadic. I was travelling 300 days a year and building out my research. These were a bit like my learning and migrating years, so to say.

I always have coffee and porridge for breakfast.

I went to the studio of Fischli Weiss, and it was magical. I thought: 'This is what I want to do with my life; I want to work with artists and be useful to them.' I was magnetically attracted.

One of my favourite exhibitions is called 'Do It,' which I co-curated with the artists Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier 21 years ago.

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.