Life in Progress

At six, Hans Ulrich Obrist was hit by a speeding car while crossing the street. The weeks he spent recovering in hospital gave him a lasting sense of urgency and showed him how art can heal. This memoir follows what came next: a curious boy in a small Swiss town in the 1970s who took refuge in books, then a sixteen-year-old in 1985 riding night trains across Europe to visit artists in their studios. Before long he was calling on hundreds of them every year.

Obrist is now counted among the most influential people in the global art world, known for a work ethic the Financial Times called terrifying. He has curated more than 350 exhibitions, recorded over 2,000 hours of interviews with artists, and staged 24-hour marathon events at the Serpentine Galleries in London. Here he goes back to the experiences that shaped him. As a university student he mounted his first exhibition in his own kitchen for an audience of no more than thirty. Stranded by an avalanche, he wrote to 250 strangers across the art world by postcard.

When he took over the Serpentine Galleries, he pushed at the question of what museums are for and who they are for, taking art beyond the walls of the gallery. Along the way the book brings in encounters with figures such as Gerhard Richter, Louise Bourgeois, Etel Adnan and Agnes Varda.

Part coming-of-age story, part insider's tour of contemporary art, and part guide to a life driven by curiosity, conversation and coincidence, Life in Progress is a personal tribute to art, to the people who make it, and to its power to change lives.