What does the former Director of Manchester International Festival have in store for New York’s largest art space, due to open next month – and who will the events be for? Emma Brockes meets Alex Poots, Artistic Director of The Shed.
In 2014, Alex Poots, then artistic director of the Manchester international festival, was approached by a group of New Yorkers with a perplexing proposal. Would he be interested, they asked, in moving to Manhattan to run an as yet unbuilt arts centre, to which $75m (£57m) in public money had been committed but for which, at that stage, there were no offices, no staff, no website, no bank account and no mission, beyond that of creating something that was “unlike anything else in New York”? A blank space, in other words, and “terrifying”, says Poots, which is why his instinct was to jump and say yes. “There’s that quote: if you’re not in over your head, how will you ever find out how tall you are?”... Keep reading on The Guardian
In 2014, Alex Poots, then artistic director of the Manchester international festival, was approached by a group of New Yorkers with a perplexing proposal. Would he be interested, they asked, in moving to Manhattan to run an as yet unbuilt arts centre, to which $75m (£57m) in public money had been committed but for which, at that stage, there were no offices, no staff, no website, no bank account and no mission, beyond that of creating something that was “unlike anything else in New York”? A blank space, in other words, and “terrifying”, says Poots, which is why his instinct was to jump and say yes. “There’s that quote: if you’re not in over your head, how will you ever find out how tall you are?”... Keep reading on The Guardian