Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist
Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, do it began in Paris in 1993 as a conversation between Obrist and the artists Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier. Obrist was concerned with how exhibition formats could be rendered more flexible and open-ended. This discussion led to the question of whether a show could take “scores,” or written instructions by artists, as a point of departure, each of which could be interpreted anew every time they were enacted. To test the idea, Obrist invited 12 artists to send instructions, which were then translated into 9 different languages and circulated internationally as a book.
Nearly 20 years later after the initial conversation took place, do it has been featured in at least 50 different locations worldwide, including Australia, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Mexico, Costa Rica, Slovenia and Uruguay. The driving force behind the exhibition is aptly summarized in the words of Marcel Duchamp, who states that “art is a game between all people of all periods.” He is only one of several predecessors to have shaped the modus operandi of this exhibition, which also draws from Conceptual and Minimalist art of the 1960s and 1970s as well as Fluxus practices. Each do it exhibition is uniquely site-specific because it engages the local community in a dialogue that responds to and adds a new set of instructions, while it remains global in the scope of its ever-expanding repertoire. This also means that the generative and accumulative aspects of do it’s ongoing presentation are less concerned with notions of the “reproduction” or materiality of the artworks than with revealing the nuances of human interpretation in its various permutations and iterations. In this way, do it is able to bridge the gaps between the temporalities of past, present and future.
This open exhibition model has become the longest-running and most far-reaching exhibition to ever take place, giving new meaning to the concept of the “Exhibition in Progress.” In addition to the production of an on-line version of do it created by Obrist in conjunction with e-flux in 2004, other versions that do it has grown to encompass include do it (museum), do it (home), do it (TV), do it (seminar), do it (outside), do it (party), as well as some anti-do its, a philosophy do it and most recently a UNESCO children’s do it.
In building off the 1997 collaboration of ICI with Obrist to create a do it that took place in 25 cities across North America, a new version of the exhibition, which marks the 20th anniversary of this landmark project, presents the largest selection of instructional works to date—including 50 newly commissioned pieces from artists selected by Obrist and ICI. Organized around the instructions submitted by artists, venues will select at least 20 instructional works to present from a list of 250.
do it is a traveling exhibition conceived and curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, and organized by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York. The exhibition and the accompanying publication were made possible, in part by grants from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, and with the generous support from Project Perpetual and ICI’s International Forum and Board of Trustees.
On July 12, 2020 Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries, hosted a marathon live interview via Zoom, with 17 of the 18 artists and creative practitioners who contributed to Kaldor Public Art Project 36: do it (australia).
July 12, 2020 @ Online
A benefit to support curatorial practice and independent thinking.
June 25, 2020 @ ZOOM
Hans Ulrich Obrist and the ICI traveling exhibition do it are profiled extensively in the current issue of The New Yorker magazine.
December 2, 2014
An animated short about Hans Ulrich Obrist’s ongoing exhibition do it, narrated by Reggie Watts.
April 28, 2014 - May 5, 2014 @ Everywhere
In 1996, three years after the inception of do it, curator Robert Fleck interviewed Hans Ulrich Obrist on the impetus for organizing the generative exhibition. Obrist shares his thoughts on the first iterations of the exhibition and the unending potential for future versions.
March 17, 2013
Throughout its duration at e-flux, the contents of do it have grown exponentially to include new instructions, essays, interviews as well as feedback from the audience. Please continue to the e-flux website to find out more about the history of the project.
Hans Ulrich Obrist (b. 1968, Zürich, Switzerland) is Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries in London, and Senior Artistic Advisor of The Shed in New York. 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 300 exhibitions.
Obrist has lectured internationally at academic and art institutions, and is a contributing editor to the magazines Artforum, AnOther Magazine, 032C, a regular contributor to Mousse and Kaleidoscope and he writes columns for Das Magazin and Weltkunst. In 2011 he received the CCS Bard Award for Curatorial Excellence, and in 2015 he was awarded the International Folkwang Prize for his commitment to the arts.
His recent publications include Mondialité, Conversations in Mexico,Ways of Curating, The Age of Earthquakes with Douglas Coupland and Shumon Basar, and Lives of The Artists, Lives of The Architects.
Marina Abramović, Etel Adnan, Sophia Al Maria, Pawel Althamer, Amalia Pica, Carl Andre, Kathryn Andrews, Uri Aran, Cory Arcangel, John Armleder, Robert Ashley, David Askevold, Ed Atkins, Tarek Atoui, Lutz Bacher, Darren Bader, Nairy Baghramian, John Baldessari, Matthew Barney, Yto Barrada, Robert Barry, Gianfranco Baruchello, Jérôme Bel, Kim Beom, Bernadette Corporation, Gerry Bibby, Dara Birnbaum, Mel Bochner, John Bock, Christian Boltanski, Iñaki Bonillas, Louise Bourgeois, Geta Bratescu, Joan Brossa, Daniel Buren, Waltercio Caldas, Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Mircea Cantor, Antonio Caro, Maurizio Cattelan, John Chamberlain, Paul Chan, Boris Charmatz, Chu Yun, Jay Chung, Hélène Cixous, Lygia Clark, Amy E. Cohen and Francisco J. Varela, Douglas Coupland, Meg Cranston, Critical Art Ensemble, Minerva Cuevas, Jeroen de Rijke and Willem de Rooij, Tacita Dean, Wilson Díaz, Diller + Scofidio, do it tv, Trisha Donnelly, Jimmie Durham, Maria Eichorn, Olafur Eliasson, Elmgreen & Dragset, Tracey Emin, Ayse Erkmen, Cerith Wyn Evans, Mathias Faldbakken, Cao Fei, Feng Mengbo, Fischli & Weiss, Claire Fontaine, William Forsythe, Simone Forti, Hreinn Fridfinnsson, Yona Friedman, Simon Fujiwara, Theaster Gates, Paul-Armand Gette, Jef Geys, Gilbert & George, Simryn Gill, Liam Gillick, Édouard Glissant, Leon Golub, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Douglas Gordon, Dan Graham, Rodney Graham, Konstantin Grcic, Joseph Grigely, Ulrike Grossarth, Gu Dexin, Marie-Ange Guilleminot, Shilpa Gupta, Anna Halprin, Richard Hamilton, Harsha NS, Mona Hatoum, Federico Herrero, Anthony Hill, Maria Teresa Hincapie, Roger Hiorns, Damien Hirst, Shere Hite, Nicholas Hlobo, Carsten Höller, Jonathan Horowitz, Hu Fang, Huang Yong Ping, Pierre Huyghe, Fabrice Hybert, Cristina Iglesias, Joan Jonas, Ilya Kabakov, Stephen Kaltenbach, Allan Kaprow, Mike Kelley, Hassan Khan, Ben Kinmont, Ragnar Kjartansson, Alison Knowles, Aaron Koblin, Terence Koh, Jiří Kolář, Julius Koller, Koo Jeong-A, Surasi Kusolwong, Suzanne Lacy, David Lamelas, Adriana Lara, Bertrand Lavier, Xavier Le Roy, Kemang Wa Lehulere, Sol LeWitt, Klara Liden, Erik van Lieshout, Lucy R. Lippard, Liu Ding, Liu Wei, Thomas Lommée, Aníbal López, Lee Lozano, Lu Chunsheng, Sarah Lucas, David Lynch, Jorge Macchi, Tobias Madison, Mark Manders, Christian Marclay, Enzo Mari, Eva Marisaldi, Chris Marker, Helen Marten, Paul McCarthy, Cildo Meireles, Jonas Mekas, Annette Messager, Olaf Metzel, John Miller, Andrei Monastyrski, Robert Morris, Valérie Mréjen, Otto Mühl, Eileen Myles, Jean-Luc Nancy, Deimantas Narkevičius, Ernesto Neto, Rivane Neuenschwander, Max Neuhaus, Albert Oehlen, Roman Ondák, Yoko Ono, Füsun Onur, Damián Ortega, Fernando Ortega, Clifford Owens, Nam June Paik, Pak Sheung-Chueng, Charlemagne Palestine, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Lygia Pape, Nicolás Paris, Philippe Parreno, Marko Peljhan, Cesare Pietroiusti, Adrian Piper, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Marjetica Potrč, Cedric Price, Raqs Media Collective, Casey E. B. Reas, David Reed, Tobias Rehberger, Pedro Reyes, Jason Rhoades, Pipilotti Rist, David Robbins, Adrián Villar Rojas, Ugo Rondinone, Martha Rosler, Ed Ruscha, Claude Rutault, Anri Sala, Eszter Salamon, Tomás Saraceno, Julião Sarmento, Dimitar Sasselov, Peter Saville, Tomas Schmit, Thomas Schütte, Tino Sehgal, Sejima Kazuyo, Hassan Sharif, Jim Shaw, Rupert Sheldrake, Shimabuku, Gabriel Sierra, Alexandre Singh, Andreas Slominski, Michael Smith, Michael E. Smith, Nancy Spero, Bruce Sterling, Mladen Stilinović, Sturtevant, Hugo Suter, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Tone Yasunou, Mario Garcia Torres, Ryan Trecartin, Rosemarie Trockel, Agnes Varda, Anton Vidokle, Tris Vonna-Michell, Franz Erhard Walther, Wang Jianwei, Wang Wei, Hannah Weinberger, Lawrence Weiner, Ai Weiwei, Richard Wentworth, Franz West, Emmett Williams, Gil Wolman, Erwin Wurm, Xu Tan, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, Zheng Guogu,
Number of artists or artists groups: 250
Number of works: 250
Space required: extremely flexible, though at least 1,000 square feet is recommended
For additional information, as well as to check specific dates of availability, contact Becky Nahom at 212.254.8200 x 205, or becky@curatorsintl.org.
INDEPENDENT CURATORS INTERNATIONAL
401 BROADWAY, SUITE 1620
NEW YORK, NY 10013
T: +1 212 254 8200 F: +1 212 477 4781
E: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
