{"id":13915,"date":"2025-07-13T21:07:29","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T19:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artinterview.com\/critique\/hans-ulrich-obrist\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T20:48:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:48:04","slug":"hans-ulrich-obrist","status":"publish","type":"critique","link":"https:\/\/artinterview.com\/en\/critique\/hans-ulrich-obrist\/","title":{"rendered":"Hans Ulrich Obrist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Work No. 168<\/em> d’Emma Kunz<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In our encounter with a prominent figure from the world of art and culture, we posed a single, straightforward question: Which artwork has marked you deeply and continues to hold meaning in your life and career? A return to the fascination, wonder, unease, or shock that a work of art can awaken in us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Work n\u00b0 168, Emma Kunz (d\u00e9tail), \u00a9 Emma Kunz Zentrum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Par Fanny Revault<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

When did art first enter our lives? For Hans-Ulrich Obrist\u2014art historian, critic, and curator of exhibitions around the world\u2014it was a drawing by Emma Kunz featured on a box of AION A, the remedy his mother regularly bought at the pharmacy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That drawing was always within reach at home. It awakened in him an immediate, intuitive connection to art. From this tender and benevolent relationship with art emerged a deep understanding\u2014one that undoubtedly shaped the clarity and assurance of his eye, propelling him to the pinnacle of the international art world.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, he discovered the full breadth of her body of work. Hans-Ulrich Obrist reflects here on the importance of this visionary artist, whose practice seamlessly intertwines art and spirituality. At once an artist, researcher, and healer, Emma Kunz produced more than 350 drawings, all created with the aid of her pendulum. This childhood memory never left him. In 1992, he organized one of the first exhibitions dedicated to her at the Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris, and more recently in 2019 at the Serpentine Galleries, which he has directed since 2016.<\/strong> Encounter<\/strong>.
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What was your first encounter with art?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

One experience in particular left a deep impression on me during childhood, and I would say it was the work of Emma Kunz. I have always been profoundly transformed by her art. I did not grow up in a Swiss household where art played any significant role. Yet art entered our home thanks to Emma Kunz, because when I was a child, my mother often bought a product called AION A\u2014a remedy that Emma Kunz herself discovered. It is a powder derived from a rock also named AION A, whose healing properties Kunz identified. In many Swiss pharmacies, this product was sold in packaging featuring one of her drawings. It was through AION A that art first entered our house.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n