Hans Ulrich Obrist and Christian Boltanski are not only connected through a long-lasting friendship. Boltanski was also the first artist that the adolescent Obrist ever interviewed.

Over many years the two have often met for discussions, the first of which, from 1994, are published here. Whether on a taxi-boat in Venice, in his atelier or at an exhibition in Ljubljana, Boltanski readily provides information on his projects, which also lead him into the field of performance arts such as opera and dance.

His collaborations with other artists such as Ilya Kabakov are also a theme of the discussions and, at times, others actually play an active part in it, as in the case of the designer Jean Kalman or the sociologist Luc Boltanski, Christian Boltanski’s brother. The result is a personal and multi-voiced picture of one of the most important artists of our time.

English text.