After three years as a curator at Pace Gallery in New York, Andria Hickey is moving a few blocks away and into a different realm to become the next chief curator at the Shed, the interdisciplinary arts and performance space that anchors the cultural component of Hudson Yards.
Beginning March 2, Hickey will oversee the venue’s visual arts program in collaboration with artistic director and CEO Alex Poots and senior program advisor Hans Ulrich Obrist, as well as its “performance and civic program teams” led by Madani Younis and Tamara McCaw, according to a press release.
Hickey takes over in the top curatorial post from Emma Enderby, who joined the Shed before its opening in 2019 and, this past October, announced her exit to become chief curator at Munich’s Haus der Kunst. While at the Shed, Enderby organized exhibitions devoted to Trisha Donnelly, Agnes Denes, Ian Cheng, and Tomàs Saraceno, as well as group shows with works by Tony Cokes, Oscar Murillo, Carrie Mae Weems, Lynn Hershman Leeson, and others.
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Hickey, for her part, was Pace Gallery’s first designated curator when she was hired in 2018. Since then, she helped initiate the “Pace Live” program of performance-related presentations while also organizing exhibitions of work by the likes of Agnes Martin and, under the title “Hiding in Plain Sight,” a group show featuring Etel Adnan, Torkwase Dyson, Sam Gilliam, Kapwani Kiwanga, Trevor Paglen, Walid Raad, Hito Steyerl, and more. Prior to Pace, Hickey was senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland in Ohio. She had previously held curatorial posts at the Public Art Fund in New York, Art in General in New York, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
In a statement, Poots said, “Andria brings over 15 years of curatorial experience working in a wide range of contemporary art institutions—a collecting museum, alternative art space, public art organization, and most recently, a commercial gallery. Most importantly, she brings a deep commitment to supporting a diverse span of artists at all stages of their careers as they move culture in new directions.”
Hickey added, “Now more than ever, the interdisciplinary nature of cultural spaces like The Shed offer artists an opportunity to collaborate and experiment in ways that reveal who we are, where we are going, and why culture is a guiding force in our lives today.”