The artists will run Performance Space New York in 2020

[EVG file photo]

Leadership at Performance Space New York has announced a new, artist-run model for 2020 at the nonprofit arts organization on First Avenue and Ninth Street.

Here's part of the letter we received from choreographer Sarah Michelson and Executive Artistic Director Jenny Schlenzka that explains the yearlong project called 02020.

For the year of 2020 a group of NYC-based artists and collectives have been given the mandate to run the organization together with our staff, board and leadership. The artists have received keys to the spaces, have moved into our business offices, and will move into our theaters next month.

They have full transparency into the organization’s inner workings and full artistic control of our programming, including oversight of the website. Our total annual production budget is at the artists’ full disposal to pay themselves a wage and develop their programmatic platforms. The only requirement of their tenure is that the spaces must be utilized.

Shifting our model is shifting our future: toward new institutional structures, new coalitions, new partnerships, new priorities. We know artistic practice is changing, that the world is changing, and that we need to be ready to adjust. We are betting on an artist-recalibrated institutional mission as a catalyst for futurist art practice

The cohort of artists will announce their initial plans via the Performance Space New York website in the middle of February.

Last week, Performance Space New York (formerly P.S. 122), now entering its 40th year, unveiled a new partnership with the Keith Haring Foundation. Moving forward, their main space will be known as the Keith Haring Theatre.