This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Southbank Centre and its Artistic Director Mark Ball is in buoyant mood. As well he might, since Harry Styles has just been announced as the curator of this year’s Meltdown. While some may be sniffy about the pop star taking on a curator role previously held by heavyweight names like David Bowie, Grace Jones and Patti Smith, Ball easily dismisses such notions.
“It felt really important to anchor a younger artist in the heart of Meltdown, who was able to speak to younger audiences,” he says, “Harry Styles was really at the top of that list. But also as an artist, you can really see that he is evolving, and has a cross-disciplinary mindset. You look at the last Harry Styles album [Harry’s House], where Haroumi Hosono was the inspiration, an avant-garde Japanese electronica artist. Meltdown allows a more multi-dimensional reveal of an artist, for them to express their personality and vision and influences. It's like them taking out their record collection and making it live. What's going to be really exciting about working with Harry is that people will see all of these different influences showing this is a rich expressive artist, not a one-dimensional pop character.”
