Obrist talks to animals: on Tik Tok his art interviews... with critters

Renowned art critic Hans Ulrich Obrist has landed on Tik Tok, the social media of the moment, and he does so in a very special way. As anyone who is passionate about contemporary art knows, the mode by which Obrist has become famous is interviewing, and on his account he has decided to interview ... animals. Both his pets (a dachshund dog named Gordon, the cat Ouatarra, and the turtle Don) and the critters he met in the park, in London: so here in the project come ducks, swans, various birds, squirrels.

The question, really, is always the same: Obrist wants to derive information about the “unrealized projects” of the animals he interviews. And the reactions are not slow: the cat, for example, as soon as the question is over, looks at him disconsolately and almost seems to shake its head. The dog stares at him impassively, while a parakeet even ... attacks him. And then there are the animals that continue to mind their own business: a pony that continues to ruminate, a squirrel that eats, a heron indifferent to the critic takes flight from a bridge. The only one who responds is a black swan.

Explaining to Artnet news magazine the reasons for his project, Obrist said he drew inspiration from a book by philosopher Vinciane Despret, titled What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? (“What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions?”). “It is a book of scientific fables about the difficulty of imagining, on our part, what animals are capable of doing,” the critic said. “I often meet animals at Kensington Gardens on my daily walk and during my daily yoga sessions I do in the park, so I started asking them my favorite question about their unrealized projects.” Who knows what they will tell!

Obrist talks to animals: on Tik Tok his art interviews... with critters

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