This was the first time that art curator Hans Ulrich Obrist had performed this type of interviews in the context of the opening of an arts centre. Obrist first began publishing his interviews in Art Forum in 1996; since then he has recorded more than 2,000 hours of interviews with artists, architects, scientists, urban-planners, philosophers and writers, etc. His first experience with live interviews was in Stuttgart in 2005, and subsequently he has performed them on a number of occasions at the Serpentine Gallery (London), commencing with “24 hours with Rem Koolhas” (2006), “Experiment Series with Olafur Eliasson” (2007), “Manifesto Marathon” (2008) and “Poetry Marathon” (2009)

The results were published in his well-known book “Interviews, Volume I” (Charta, 2003), followed shortly afterwards by “Interviews, Volume II”, which contains a collection of his interviews. In addition to this, Hans Ulrich Obrist has held a number of conversations with legendary art curators such as Cladders and Szeeman, which are published in the book entitled “A Brief History of Curating”.

Similarly, Hans Ulrich Obrist has written a number of volumes about individual artists -Olafur Eliasson, Gilbert & George, Baldessari, Yoko Ono, etc.- as part of a book collection called “The Conversation Series”.