This event was recorded on February 19, 2023 at the Aspen Art Museum, in partnership with Aspen Public Radio.
Art museums are changing rapidly in response to accelerated cultural, political, and technological shifts in our society. A new kind of museum is emerging—more open, democratic, and accessible. This demands a new approach to museum architecture as well.
A conversation between Serpentine Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist and New York–based author and cultural strategy consultant András Szántó, whose latest book Imagining the Future Museum: 21 Dialogues with Architects, surveys the emerging architectural landscape through dialogues with leading figures in the field. Several of the architects featured in the book have been showcased in the Serpentine’s visionary summer Pavilion commission series, including Kunlé Adeyemi, Frida Escobedo, Sou Fujimoto, and Bjarke Ingels, as well as this year’s recipient, Lina Ghotmeh. Drawing inspiration from their works and those of other architects in the book and beyond, Szántó and Obrist reflect on how today’s generation of architects is working to reinvent the art museum.
András Szántó advises museums, foundations, educational institutions, and corporations on cultural strategy and program development, worldwide. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University. An author and editor, his writings have appeared in the New York Times, Artforum, The Art Newspaper, and many other publications. He has overseen the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University and the Global Museum Leaders Colloquium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Szántó, who lives in Brooklyn, has been conducting conversations with art-world leaders since the early 1990s, including as a frequent moderator of the Art Basel Conversations series. His latest book, Imagining the Museum: 21 Dialogues with Architects (2022) follows on The Future of the Museum: 28 Dialogues (2020).
Hans Ulrich Obrist (b. 1968, Zurich, Switzerland) is artistic director of the Serpentine in London and senior advisor at LUMA Arles. Prior to this, he was the curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show World Soup (The Kitchen Show) in 1991, he has curated more than 350 exhibitions. His recent shows include IT’S URGENT at LUMA Arles (2019–21) and Enzo Mari at Triennale Milano (2020). Obrist received the CCS Bard Award for Curatorial Excellence in 2011, was awarded the International Folkwang Prize in 2015, and, most recently, was honored by the Appraisers Association of America with the 2018 Award for Excellence in the Arts.