Pierre Audi.
artnet News has learned that Pierre Audi will be named the next artistic director of the Park Avenue Armory, a cultural institution on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that mounts ambitious shows in its cavernous drill hall space (see Alex Poots to Lead New York’s Planned $360 Million Culture Shed).
Audi replaces former director Alex Poots who left to take the helm of the New York’s planned Culture Shed (see Douglas Gordon and Hélène Grimaud Tenderly Flood The Park Avenue Armory and Marina Abramovic and Olafur Eliasson Announced for Park Avenue Armory).
Audi has served as director of the Dutch National Opera for the past 25 years, according to the opera’s website. He grew up in Beirut Lebanon and Paris, France. At 17, he moved to the UK where he studied history at the University of Oxford. In 1979, he founded the Almeida Theatre, which became an important hub for contemporary music theater.
Among recent high profile shows at the armory was Scottish artist Douglas Gordon’s “tears become… streams become,” which drew mixed reviews (see: Douglas Gordon At the Armory Is All Flash And No Follow Through).
Gordon filled the Armory’s vast drill hall with a shallow pool of water that slowly filled, drained, and refilled. The pool’s pitch-black lining created a mirror-like reflective surface when the pool was filled. Two Steinway grand pianos in the center of the pool appeared to float upon the water. With subdued lighting, Gordon created a meditative, atmosphere in the cavernous space.