Alex Poots, Artistic Director and CEO of The Shed, has announced that Andria Hickey will join the innovative arts center’s senior program team and executive leadership as Chief Curator, beginning March 2. Hickey will oversee the conception and realization of The Shed’s visual arts program, working closely with Poots and Senior Program Advisor Hans Ulrich Obrist, and collaborating with the performance and civic program teams led by Madani Younis and Tamara McCaw, respectively, on cross-disciplinary work.

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. She is strongly aligned with The Shed’s goals of supporting artistic invention across all forms of creativity, addressing the urgent issues of our time, and making our work impactful, sustainable, and relevant to the local community, the cultural sector, New York City, and beyond. I’m excited for Andria to build upon the significant work of our visual arts team under her predecessor Emma Enderby and for what she will contribute to our new organization’s vision and program.”

Obrist added, “Andria’s longstanding interest in civic engagement and experience in supporting artists to develop and realize new commissions make her a ideal fit for The Shed. She is a brilliant curator and we look forward to working with her.”

Hickey said, “I’m thrilled to join The Shed at this exciting time for the institution. I look forward to collaborating with Alex Poots, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Madani Younis, Tamara McCaw, and the entire staff to build upon the groundbreaking visual arts program established by Emma Enderby and the visual arts team. 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. I am inspired by The Shed’s leadership in supporting artists at all stages of their careers, commissioning new work at every opportunity, and launching New York’s only open call program at a major institution. I am excited to think alongside artists and my new curatorial colleagues to consider how art institutions can be sites for innovation and new ways of working.”

Hickey joins The Shed from Pace Gallery where she has been Senior Director and Curator since 2018. During her time at Pace, she established a curatorial team and initiated the live art performance program Pace Live, both firsts in a commercial gallery, while advancing the exhibition program and artist roster. She curated numerous exhibitions, including in 2021: co-curating a monographic survey of the work of Wifredo Lam; an international thematic exhibition, Hiding in Plain Sight, featuring the work of Etel Adnan, Yto Barrada, Aria Dean, Torkwase Dyson, Simon Denny, Sam Gilliam, Suki Sukyeong Kang, Kapwani Kiwanga, Rodney McMillan, Trevor Paglen, Walid Raad, Adrian Villar Rojas, Hito Steyerl, Rayanne Tabet, Jessica Vaughn, and Fred Wilson; and together with Marc Glimcher, a focused exhibition on the work of Agnes Martin from 1976 to 1992. 

Before joining Pace, Hickey was Senior Curator at MOCA Cleveland, where she shaped the vision for the program, managed the exhibitions and curatorial teams, and focused on community engagement initiatives, including a two-year residency of Town Halls with For Freedoms artist coalition. At MOCA she organized exhibitions by Adam Pendleton, Lisa Oppenheim, Phil Collins, Claudia Comte, Tauba Auerbach and Éliane Radigue, as well as the large-scale group show APoet*hical Wager, exploring the relationship between abstraction and ethics, and the museum’s contribution to the inaugural Front Triennial. Hickey was a Curatorial Fellow in the Visual Arts Department at the Walker Art Center from 2007 to 2010. Moving on to serve as Curator of Art in General in New York, she was appointed Curator at Public Art Fund in 2011, where she organized public projects throughout the city with artists Danh Vo, Katarina Grosse, Martin Creed, Erin Shirreff, Carol Bove, David Shrigley, Monika Sosnowska, Fischli & Weiss, Adam Pendleton, Hank Willis Thomas, and Oscar Tuazon, among others. Hailing from Newfoundland, Canada, Hickey holds an MA in art history from Concordia University in Montreal, and a BA in English literature from Memorial University in Newfoundland. She has lectured broadly, and her written work has been published in a wide variety of journals and exhibition catalogues. 

The Shed’s visual arts program, under former Chief Curator and current Curator-at-Large Emma Enderby and assistant curators Alessandra Gómez and Adeze Wilford, has commissioned new work and organized major exhibitions featuring Morehshin Allahyari, Ian Cheng, Tony Cokes, Agnes Denes, Trisha Donnelly, Simon Fujiwara, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Jonas Mekas, Oscar Murillo, Sondra Perry, Howardena Pindell, Gerhard Richter, and Martine Syms. In 2021, The Shed presented the outdoor augmented reality exhibition The Looking Glass in partnership with Acute Art, featuring work by Koo Jeong A, Nina Chanel Abney, Darren Bader, Julie Curtiss, Olafur Eliasson, Cao Fei, KAWS, Alicja Kwade, Bjarne Melgaard, Precious Okoyomon, and Tomás Saraceno; Drift: Fragile Future in partnership with Superblue; and hosted Frieze New York, which is returning this May, and Unfinished Live.Open Call, The Shed’s large-scale commissioning program for early-career artists who live and work in New York City, is currently seeking applications for its third edition in 2023. This month, The Shed opens its largest exhibition to date, Tomás Saraceno: Particular Matter(s), an expansive gallery exhibition and sensory experience with spiderwebs, air, and the cosmic web.