For more than 12 years, Hans Ulrich Obrist has been asking the artists he meets to write something—anything—on a Post-it note, which he then posts on Instagram. He’s ended up with thousands of varied responses: “CLOUD iN THE SKY, DUST iN THE EYE,” scribbled Marina Abramović on a classic yellow rectangle; “Love Life,” wrote David Hockney on a bright red square; “Remember to Dream!” wrote Carrie Mae Weems in felt tip on a white note. The prolific curator chose Weems’s contribution as the title of a new book, published by HENI, that compiles 100 of these notes.
The result is a meandering, charming take on contemporary life, narrated through short snippets from some of today’s greatest minds, from Tim Berners-Lee to FKA twigs. It celebrates handwriting, an increasingly rare method of communication, and offers rare intimate encounters with famous figures from across cultural spheres.
Artsy spoke to Hans Ulrich Obrist about recapturing the spirit of analog communication, the joy of Post-its, and which artists he’s watching out for in 2024.
Josie Thaddeus-Johns: Your new book is about handwriting, a very IRL medium. How does this intersect with our proliferating use of digital tech to record our thoughts and communicate with others?
Hans Ulrich Obrist: The idea to celebrate handwriting on my Instagram came because [video artist] Ryan Trecartin had downloaded the app when it first started and told everyone that I had downloaded it, so then I needed to come up with an idea. I knew that I wanted to somehow have a mission, and then [writer and philosopher] Umberto Eco told me about the necessity of saving and celebrating handwriting. So I came to the conclusion that, because I meet artists every day, I would photograph a handwritten sentence by them, a quote. It would almost become a diary of my encounters.
J.T-J.: What’s the power of a Post-it note as a visual signifier (as opposed to another kind of paper)?
H.U.O.: The reason I decided to use a Post-it note is that it was just the most available thing I had, these sticky notes that come in different colors and are portable. It wasn’t exactly random, but was just about what was available to me. I had the idea to interview the founder of the Post-it note, but that remained an unrealized project, because he’s passed away now.
Once I started to use Post-its, more and more friends told me about unusual ones, in different shapes. There’s a Post-it in the shape of a TV screen, which is what Sophia Al-Maria used; one in the form of a head with hair, which Douglas Coupland used. Another, which Carsten Höller used, has a grid structure printed on top of it. And there’s a folded Post-it which Otobong Nkanga used. It’s also, in a way, a constraint—it’s an Oulipian [the French movement that used limitations as a source of creativity] idea. I was interested in how many variations and possibilities this constraint offered.
J.T-J.: Which was your most commented-on handwriting Instagram post? Why do you think that was?
H.U.O.: At a certain time, there were lots of questions. I think, of course, when a question is directly addressed to the viewer, that usually leads to the most comments, because lots of people suggest not only comments, but answers. These will actually be published in a separate, follow-up volume of just questions at some point. Then also I did a post when my mother passed away. She was in her mid-eighties and it was basically the story of starting an art practice at 80. The last five years of her life she created art. And I think that very personal post got a lot of comments. That was in August 2019.
J.T-J.: I can see a lot of aspirational and hopeful messages in these Post-its. How would you characterize what your interviewees wrote?
H.U.O.: A lot of them are aspirational notes as you mention. There are also a lot of hopes and messages for the future. Faith Ringgold, for example, wrote: “Anyone can fly, all you’ve got to do is try.” Of course, sometimes they also connect to my project, “do it” [Obrist’s open-ended exhibition format where artists give directions to the audience], with written instructions. But there are lots of different categories. There are conceptual ones, thematizing or self-reflecting. Others are questions. Others are famous quotes: Tim Berners-Lee’s “This is for everyone,” which he wrote about the web, or George Lucas’s “May the Force be with you.” Often the author would invent the quote while they would write it.
The multilingualism is also important. That’s what Edouard Glissant advised: Every day, we have to celebrate many languages and also those we don’t necessarily understand. So having many different languages in the book is important.
J.T-J.: Last year, in an interview with Artsy, you said you were interested in how artists are using video games in 2023. How do you see this thread continuing to develop in artists’ practice for 2024?
H.U.O.: Yes, I’d been working on a show on world-building at the Julia Stoschek Collection in Düsseldorf, which then moved in parallel to the Centre Pompidou Metz. A lot of these projects are a mix between the digital and physical, like Keiken, for example.
These shows have come to a conclusion but I don’t see this as closed, since video games are going to become more important in the future, also for 2024. The show we did [at the Serpentine] with Gabriel Massan, for instance, will now be touring to Brazil. He’s a young Brazilian artist who inspired Madonna’s recent concert. When I visit the studios of artists now they don’t just want to make video games, but video engines. So on that note, we can say it’s only just begun.
J.T-J.: Which artists are you watching for 2024?
H.U.O.: We’re planning a show with Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, their first monographic museum project, exploring, as they say, “the dark corners of what it means to be an artist in the AI age.” They look into the artistic, technical, social, and economic aspects of these technologies. Training data and also machine learning models: These two elements of AI are going to be part of that exhibition.
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/CQKS1NM
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