Quotes from Hans-Ulrich Obrist

During my time at high school and university in Kreuzlingen and St. Gallen, I traveled around Europe looking at art, visiting artists, studios, galleries and museums.

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

Fly-in, fly-out curating nearly always produces superficial results; it's a practice that goes hand in hand with the fashion for applying the word 'curating' to everything that involves simply making a choice - radio playlists, hotel decor, even the food stalls in New York's High Line Park.

I always have coffee and porridge for breakfast.

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

I remember going to a monastery library when I was very young and being surrounded by ancient books. I fell in love.

Most cities have a centre surrounded by suburbs, but London has numerous centres: it's the model of a twenty-first century metropolis.

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.

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.

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.

The 21st-century curator works in a supremely globalised reality.

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.

Numerous are the posthumous museums and memorials devoted exclusively to one artist, architect or author and designed to preserve or artificially reconstruct the namesake's original working or living conditions.

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

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.

I founded a club, which is called the Brutally Early Club. It's basically a breakfast salon for the 21st century where art meets science meets architecture meets literature.

I see a curator as a catalyst, generator and motivator - a sparring partner, accompanying the artist while they build a show, and a bridge builder, creating a bridge to the public.

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.

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.

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.

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

At a certain time, an artist needs a big retrospective. At other times, they need a more focused exhibition. It's a different story each time; it's about establishing a dialogue.

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