VENICE — Hans Ulrich Obrist is a very busy man. And at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the curator of the 2014 Swiss Pavilion has ample opportunity to show off his multitasking skills. When ARTINFO arrived to speak with the prolific art-world impresario at the top of the morning, he was already in the midst of one conversation with a journalist, and preparing for a filmed interview with another. Sometime between finishing both interviews and hopping on a water taxi to sail off toward his charge inside the Giardini, Obrist took the time to explain his work on the Swiss pavilion.
This year’s Swiss exhibition, “A Stroll Through a Fun Palace,” features the drawings of Swiss sociologist and urbanist Lucius Burckhardt, who developed the theory of strollogy — the “science of strolling.” Likewise, the drawings of English architect Cedric Price, best known for his model of a Fun Palace, a “laboratory of fun,” are also displayed in the pavilion, along with a model of the Palace. The pavilion’s exhibition enacts the performative impulse encoded in the project’s name: visitors are invited to stroll through the space, following the trajectory of trolleys piled with drawings that are pushed by architecture students throughout the gallery. Obrist has also commissioned several time-based pieces from artists and architects, including Atelier Bow-Wow and Dominique Gonzalez Foerster, that function as homages to Price and Burckhardt.
Here, Obrist explains how the idea for the pavilion came from his reaction to Biennale director Rem Koolhaas’s request that national pavilion curators consider the influence of modernization on the past century of architecture; how his background in the art world influences his curatorial work in architecture; and why he hopes that Lucius Burckhardt will become a household name the world over.
How did you develop the Swiss pavilion project? Why show the drawings of Swiss sociologist Lucius Burckhardt and English architect Cedric Price together?
The point of departure of Rem Koolhaas is looking at the fundamental elements of architecture. One of these aspects he encouraged the pavilions somehow to look at these 20th-century figures and what is relevant for right now. It’s interesting to think about what is urgent — I always think in an exhibition about what is urgent. And I felt that, growing up in Switzerland, I met Herzog & de Meuron when I was a teenager, they were the first architects I met. They told me to study Lucius Burckhardt and I read all his books about landscape and design being invisible, and I went on his inspiring walks. And I was always thinking about how strange it is that nobody — none of my friends outside Switzerland — really knows who Lucius Burckhardt was. We need to change that because I just think he’s such an inspiration.
And back in the ’90s I did a show with Lucius and his artist friend Paul-Armand Gette, and I did a show with Cedric Price. And at that time, I had this wonderful experience where I looked at thousands of their drawings, in their studios and home, and looking at all their drawings and selecting them for the museum exhibition, I realized more and more parallels: the sense of humor, they both have the daily practice of drawing, the amazing ideas. They both were not interested in building, it’s about other means. Very few people changed architecture with less means — as Rem Koolhaas said about Cedric — which is also true about Lucius.
And it felt more interesting in the context of the Venice Architecture Biennale to show with Burckhardt something else. Because his archive is only partially digitized, so we felt it’s interesting that it’s a process.
Then, our scientific director, Lorenza Baroncelli, and I went to visit Herzog & de Meuron; we discussed the archive, and they agreed to co-curate the Burckhardt part and to do the display. And we met Mirko Zardini in Canada, and the CCA agreed to lend us the Cedric part. And then we had this base for the exhibition, and I all of a sudden realized that the most essential thing is that we make it a living archive. It’s our task to create an extraordinary experience for the viewer, and I don’t think it’s an extraordinary experience if you just have some archive documents in an exhibition that you’d rather study in a library or on your computer.
So how could we make this experience? We had numerous think-tank meetings with Herzog & de Meuron in Basel, where I gathered Philippe Parreno, Tino Sehgal, Liam Gillick, and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. They have obviously experimented for decades with the choreography and idea of the exhibition — Tino comes from the work of choreography and has developed these amazing time-based exhibitions where the choreography unfolds for the entire opening hours of the museum. It’s not a performance, it’s a situation. And in a similar way, yet very differently, Philippe and Dominique have also developed their own incredible pioneering choreographies of time-based exhibitions.
Obviously every exhibition needs a display feature and Herzog & de Meuron had this brilliant idea of the trolleys. We were looking at Lucius Burckhardt documents and all of a sudden they wheeled these trolleys in and Jacques [Herzog] just said “Wow! That’s it!” When you arrive in the morning, the space is completely empty; then all of a sudden a trolley shoots out and another trolley and more and more trolleys. There are also the panels that are kind of like an atlas of all the different projects. And these documents are brought out on the trolleys.
Tino, together with Asad Raza, developed the choreography of all these students who bring the trolleys out and start conversations with the viewer. They cast these students from the ETH Zurich, and from other architecture schools. And this was all done with Lorenza Baroncelli and Stefano Boeri, the school’s president. There are more than 60 students here, and every day, at least 10 line the space, they move the trolleys, they tell stories to visitors. They also listen to the visitors — they prompt the visitors into conversation. As Tino would say, this is an exchange. And that’s more or less the overall scheme.
How did your background as an art curator inform your work on the architecture biennale?
It’s interesting because I started in the ’90s to bring architecture into the art world, when Hou Hanru and I invited architects to design “Cities on the Move,” Rem Koolhhas for the London version, Yung Ho Chang for Vienna, then Shigeru Ban for the Helsinki version. So we got all these architects to design to do the exhibition design, which I think is the first connection to architecture that you have as a curator. So that’s the first contact zone, though my early teenage acquaintance with Herzog & de Meuron always was with me.
I always wanted to bring architects into the exhibitions. Then I curated the Villa Medici in Rome for three years, we had architects also do installations. That was the idea of starting to do things with architects, beyond only the exhibition design. I started to become invited more into the architecture world, to curate. So we did “Mutations” in 2000, which was my first big architecture show with Rem Koolhaas and Stefano Boeri. Because I’m not from the architecture world, when I go into the architecture field I learn a lot. And I want to learn everyday — that’s why I do these things. Then there’s also this idea of actually building. I think the most direct way to engage with architecture is to be a client, to actually build something. And that only started in 2006 when I joined the Serpentine Gallery, where our Director Julia Peyton-Jones came up with this idea in 2000 to have the institution commission a pavilion every year.
What is the most fun part of the Fun Palace, and the most fun part of strolling through the Fun Palace?
I hope that it’s an exhibition where you can have very diverse experiences. Visitors can go on the roof, where [Tokyo-based architects] Atelier Bow-Wow did this homage to the aviary. It’s a rare experience because one cannot usually go to the roof of the Swiss pavilion and suddenly see the Giardini from above. You’re in this open aviary — Cedric always had this idea that the [Snowdon] Aviary, at the London Zoo, that the birds could fly out of the zoo. The amazing thing is that when you stand on the roof, there are birds all over. In some kind of way, that is I think a very fun experience — the idea of climbing and then going into this aviary.
And also, when this trolley shoots towards you and something is unfolding — that’s a very fun moment, with discovery and surprise. Also, hopefully it’s fun for the viewer that all these artworks continually pop up: a moving tree of Carsten Höller, a singing tree of Koo Jeong A, a homage to Cedric and Lucius by Olafur Eliasson. Also, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster created a neon for Lucius and Cedric, Liam Gillick created a new sign for the Swiss pavilion, “Palazzo F.,” Philippe Parreno created 27 blinds which make the space oscillate from darkness to light, and et cetera. In some kind of way, the pavilion is also a sketch. Cedric wanted 10,000 people to make an extraordinary experience in his Fun Palace every day, and we’re not saying that the pavilion is a Fun Palace.
And what illuminations emerge when you put these two thinkers into conversation with each other?
Hopefully, 1 + 1 is 11, in the sense that they have a lot of common points and there are also a lot of differences. They both thought about networks early on. Price was interested in feedback loops and thought about cybernetics. They both did not stop inventing, and that’s all in the drawings. Because there are so many hundreds of drawings, they never repeat when you’re in the pavilion. What we can get out of it is endless inspirations, endless surprise.
