Grace Jones is to curate the 2020 edition of Meltdown, the nine-day festival taking place at London’s Southbank Centre.
“Year after year, the festival continues to spread its colourful wings, allowing its curators to bring together an array of diverse talent not seen anywhere else,” Jones said in a press release. “It’s about time I was asked to curate Meltdown darling, don’t you think?!”
Bengi Ünsal, Southbank’s head of contemporary music, said: “Grace Jones is unlike anybody else. She was the first artist who made me feel that I could express myself, be whatever I wanted to be, and not be afraid of what the world might say.”
Jones has performed at previous editions of the festival, as part of Jarvis Cocker’s 2007 lineup, and the following year with Massive Attack. Her lineup for the festival will be announced in the new year.
Meltdown was founded in 1993, initially as a classical music-focused festival. It soon widened its remit, making curators of artists including Nick Cave and Scott Walker. Jones is only the sixth woman to curate the festival in its history, following Laurie Anderson, Patti Smith, Anohni, Yoko Ono and MIA.
The next Meltdown will take place 12-21 June. Jones, who is 71, released her last album, Hurricane, in 2008, and published the autobiography I’ll Never Write My Memoirs in 2015.
