NEW YORK— New York's High Line is getting a makeover. Since the converted railway track opened to the public as a park in 2009, it has welcomed both millions of visitors and a slew of site-specific installations by artists including Sarah Sze, Spencer Finch, and Darren Almond. Now, it-girl curator Cecilia Alemanihas been appointed director of the privately-funded art program for the elevated park. (She is replacing Lauren Ross, who left the post in June to become the curator of modern and contemporary art at Tulsa's Philbrook Museum.) With yesterday's announcement that Expedia chairman Barry Diller and his wife, designer Diane von Furstenberg, would donate $20 million to the High Line — the largest donation to a park in the city's history — the construction of the last section is fully financed. But what will it look like under the watchful eye of the New York and Milan-based writer and curator?Alemani, who served as director of Elizabeth Dee's yearlong experimental X Initiative in New York and has organized exhibitions by Hans Haacke, Ryan Trecartin, and Karen Cytter, has always been a fan of interactivity. For the X Initiative's closing exhibition, Alemani organized an event called "Bring Your Own Art," in which anyone was invited to hang his or her artwork in the galleries for 24 hours. Now outside her traditional gallery-space comfort zone, Alemani chatted with ARTINFO about what viewers can expect from the new-and-improved High Line.
What are your plans for the park's art?
I don't have rules yet. I want to keep try to keep it as open as possible. What I really want to do is create and organize more short-term events, one-night events. I want to make the High Line not only a place for long-term commissions but a square where people can gather, where they know that every Monday night there will be an artist film shown. My first project will be to come up with the next presentation on the billboard on 10th Avenue and 18th Street. It's something that attracts the attention of a lot of artists because it's such an unusual location, and in a cinematic format. Right now, they have a great picture by Darren Almond. But I'm also going to start working on is a series of films and video projections.
