Life in Progress

Hans Ulrich Obrist, Dr David Watson

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Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Allen Lane
06 January 2026

Biography; Autobiography: arts & entertainment; Memoirs

World-renowned curator Hans Ulrich Obrist for the first time grants a private view of how a near-death experience in young childhood catapulted him towards art and artists

When Hans Ulrich was a young boy, he was knocked down by a speeding car. Hospitalized for weeks, he discovered the healing powers of art. Once he was able to travel again, he began to set out alone, on night trains, to meet artists in their studios across Europe.

From these early youthful encounters with the art world to his first exhibition in his Zurich kitchen, and even penning 250 postcards while trapped by an avalanche in Val Bregaglia, Obrist takes us through the formative experiences that made him.

Part unputdownable coming-of-age story, part tour de force of the contemporary art world, part user's manual on how to live driven by curiosity, conversation, and not least hope, Life in Progress is an enchanting ode to what engaging with art and the people around us boundlessly affords.

By: Hans Ulrich Obrist
Translated by: Dr David Watson
Imprint: Allen Lane
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 223mm, Width: 141mm, Spine: 17mm
Weight: 269g
ISBN: 9780241712207
ISBN 10: 0241712203
Pages: 160
Publication Date: 06 January 2026
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Hans Ulrich Obrist is Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries in London. Prior to this, he was a curator at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show World Soup (The Kitchen Show) in 1991, he has curated more than 300 shows. Obrist's recent publications include Ways of Curating (2015), The Age of Earthquakes (2015), Lives of the Artists, Lives of Architects (2015), Mondialite (2017), Somewhere Totally Else (2018) and The Athens Dialogues (2018).

Reviews for Life in Progress

Hans Ulrich Obrist manages to underline the value of art, to single it out from other human endeavours as something of paramount importance; to this, he brings an instinctive and profound love, a generosity of spirit (and heart) that he extends also to other fields of human expression -- Etel Adnan He is a passionate communicator. In result, half the world is starting to live in the future now -- Yoko Ono His words come out in an almost comical torrent, citations bobbing up and ideas colliding... ArtReview named him the most powerful figure in the field, but Obrist seems less to stand atop the art world than to race around, up, over, and through it * The New Yorker *