Now this is a concept worth emulating.

Meltdown is a yearly festival in London featuring music, art, performance and film.   21 acres in size.   

Here's what distinguishes Meltdown:  

Each year the festival chooses an established artist or act as the director of the event, and THEY SELECT the performers for the festival.    The lineups are so unique, you will never see one even close to repeated, anywhere, any time.   Past directors include Elvis Costello, Nick Cave, Ray Davies, Richard Thompson, David Bowie, John Peel (famous English DJ), Massive Attack, and Antony, to name but a few out of the past 19 years.

Guess who is the curator / director for 2013?  Are ya ready?  From the website:  

"Celebrating her 80th birthday in 2013, worldwide cultural icon Yoko Ono brings a lifetime of achievement in music, visual art and peace activism to Southbank Centre. Yoko Ono's Meltdown (14 – 23 June 2013) will be led by the artist's dedication to environmentalism, feminism and peace.

For 20 years Meltdown has invited internationally renowned musicians to create once-in-a-lifetime experiences at Southbank Centre. Tasking artists to take over the 21-acre artistic site, Meltdown is renowned for unique events and artist led programming, from Jeff Buckley's final UK show to the New York Dolls reuniting, and the first solo performance in fifteen years from Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser. Yoko Ono is no stranger to the festival, having performed as part of Ornette Coleman's Meltdown in 2009, and her return for the 2013 festival promises to have 10 days of not-to-be missed performances."

What do you think of Yoko Ono as the choice of director / curator?   No lineup announced just yet, BTW.   

I happened on this because Massive Attack is one of my favorite groups (duo) ATM, and I was stunned and  impressed that they were chosen to direct this event a few years ago.   

Each lineup looks more astonishing than the next; archives for the history of the festivals are listed, with their respective lineups.   You have to see them to believe them; exquisite writeups, totally aced in all manner of writing / speaking :

http://meltdown.southbankcentre.co.uk/

Sounds and looks pretty cool, indeed.  We might be hard-pressed to do something quite as similar in the US, where art + design have different public meanings in many ways.  A few events here come pretty close, however (SXSW, Burning Man, et al...)

Yoko Ono is a no-brainer, if judging by past curators.  Say what one will about her music/singing, but she was always a conceptual artist first and had her own creative cache well before she met Lennon.  She is an icon and honorary dean of several art scenes around the globe, but particularly in London.

 

 

 

In response to MattyScornD's comment:

Right on the money re: Yoko Ono; her footing is in the "art" world first -- we have to think of the singing as a sideline.  :)    Regardless, despite the fact she is still seen wearing sunglasses most of the time, I wouldn't mind being as spry at the age of 80.    She's remarkable.    She's definitely got the goods when it comes to connections.  I'll have to check back to see the lineup in due time.

I wonder if Sonics has an opinion on Meltdown (or if he's attended).  Perhaps if he sees this thread, he'll chime in.  

In response to yogafriend's comment:

The whole Fluxus movement Ono was/is part of is fascinating and highly influential to today's artists.  It really tried to democratize the notion of the avant garde into a shared-but-diverse aesthetic...(with varying results).

One of my art criticism professors was involved with a Fluxus group back in his native Denmark and had many stories to tell.  It was a weighty counterpoint to the more popular (and more publicized) Pop Art at the time.