HANS-ULRICH OBRIST

HANS-ULRICH OBRIST

Curator · Writer · Interviewer & Artistic Director of Serpentine Galleries

I’ve always thought that curating has to do with junction making. I’m always thinking of ways to bring people together and make connections between different worlds. I think, if we want to address the big question or challenges of the 21st century, it's very important that we go beyond the fear of pooling knowledge and move beyond these silos of knowledge to bring the different disciplines together.

Valerie Steele

Valerie Steele

Director & Chief Curator · Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology

Like many of us, I was always personally interested in fashion as a means of communication and masquerade, but it was in graduate school when a classmate of mine did a report on two scholarly articles about the Victorian corset that I suddenly had an epiphany, and I realized that fashion was a part of culture, and I could study fashion history.

IAN WARDROPPER

IAN WARDROPPER

Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director · The Frick Collection

I firmly believe that the arts should be a part of everybody's education. It's not just learning the history of art, but it's about opening up creativity as a means that can be useful to somebody throughout one's life.

ITAMAR KUBOVY

ITAMAR KUBOVY

Executive Director · Pilobolus Dance Company
I think that what they don't realise often is that the skills of the people that are sitting in those jobs are deeply in conflict with the skills required to perform well in our our time. I think there is an enormous amount of change that needs to happen in education. And I think, in some instances, it's beginning to, but we're really working and teaching our future using systems that are antiquated and don't really relate.

RALPH GIBSON

RALPH GIBSON

Photographer

Whatever I do, quite often I say– Is this good for my work? Should I go here? Should I do that? When I had my initial debut, I became known for a book called The Somnambulist. I took 24 of those pictures in one weekend and then I worked for three years on the next 24.

RICHARD FLOOD

RICHARD FLOOD

The New Museum

When you're looking, really look very, very hard at the new. Look very, very hard at what challenges you. If you're bothered by it, go deeper. So it was "Don't take the easy way out and say 'I love that'. 'Why do you love it?' 'I just feel it.' No, unacceptable. Just feeling it is not enough, if you're a responsible party. If you're a member of the public, fine, have whatever kind of experience you want, but if you're a professional, know why you're doing it.

MECHTILD RÖSSLER

MECHTILD RÖSSLER

Director · UNESCO World Heritage Centre

It's a very unique instrument. It has now 193 countries, which have ratified it. The idea of this convention is really unique because it is about heritage of outstanding universal value.

ALICIA LONGWELL

ALICIA LONGWELL

Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator
Parrish Art Museum

There's such a metaphysical moment when these images are created on a surface. In three dimension on a flat surface, it's kind of a head-scratcher to start. So great art has a transcendent moment.

ERIC FISCHL

ERIC FISCHL

Artist

The whole thing is to get them to feel like no matter where their background is from, the difficulty they have in their personal lives, the isolation that they feel in relationship to that, that within the art community they are embraced, they are welcomed. All they have to do is just keep getting better at it, but the community is there. I think that something we're all looking for is where we belong.

SUSAN FISHER STERLING

SUSAN FISHER STERLING

Director · National Museum of Women in the Arts

I came to work at the National Museum of Women in the Arts thirty-two years ago. I really took to the idea that the museum was controversial, that a lot of men said, "Why do you need a women's museum? There are so many other museums. Why do women have to be separated?"