Hans Ulrich Obrist

At the age of 18 I made a pilgrimage to Vienna to meet the artist Maria Lassnig. I was fascinated by her amazing ‘body awareness’ paintings. It was during this first meeting that she told me about the great Friederike Mayröcker, one of her favorite poets. Ever since, I have read every book Mayröcker has written and my favorite is her recent Trilogy, and particularly the book Fleurs with all its amazing neologisms. To her, poems are like watercolors, while prose is like a stone sculpture. She now creates collages of the two, which she terms ‘proems.’