Part of JRP|Ringer's innovative Documents series, published with Les Presses du Réel and dedicated to critical writings, this publication comprises a unique collection of interviews by Hans Ulrich Obrist mapping the development of the curatorial field--from early independent curators in the 1960s and 70s and the experimental institutional programs developed in Europe and the U.S. through the inception of Documenta and the various biennales and fairs--with pioneering curators Anne D'Harnoncourt, Werner Hoffman, Jean Leering, Franz Meyer, Seth Siegelaub, Walter Zanini, Johannes Cladders, Lucy Lippard, Walter Hopps, Pontus Hulten and Harald Szeemann. Speaking of Szeemann on the occasion of this legendary curator's death in 2005, critic Aaron Schuster summed up, "the image we have of the curator today: the curator-as-artist, a roaming, freelance designer of exhibitions, or in his own witty formulation, a 'spiritual guest worker'... If artists since Marcel Duchamp have affirmed selection and arrangement as legitimate artistic strategies, was it not simply a matter of time before curatorial practice--itself defined by selection and arrangement--would come to be seen as an art that operates on the field of art itself?"

汉斯•乌尔里希•奥布里斯特，1968 年生于瑞士苏黎世，现为伦敦蛇形画廊展览与国际项目总监，是活跃于当代艺术界的国际策展人和批评家。奥布里斯特迄今曾参与策划和发起了至少150 多个展览与项目，并编撰有70 多本学术著作，他的访谈项目已经积累了近2000 小时的录音素材，涉及无数全球重要的艺术家，因为他的影响力，他连续两年在《艺术评论》杂志的“艺术权力榜”中名列全球第二。