Since joining the High Line as the director and chief curator of High Line Art in 2011, Cecilia Alemani has steered the elevated park’s public-art program, commissioning works and performances and helping to foster civic engagement along its 1.45 miles.

But her reach extends beyond the wildly popular greenway. Alemani curated the exhibit “Willem de Kooning: Endless Painting” at Gagosian’s West 24th Street gallery, which is open through June 14. Moving past the New York City limits, she was the artistic director of the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, is curating the upcoming Site Santa Fe International and is working on a project for a new Paris institution slated to open in the fall of 2026.

Alemani, 48, lives in the East Village with her husband, the New Museum artistic director Massimiliano Gioni, and their 9-year-old son, Giacomo. These are edited excerpts from phone interviews over seven days in late April that took her from downtown Manhattan to Chicago and back.

After dropping off my son at school, I went to the gym, then spent the morning at home doing office work. In the late afternoon, I went out to galleries on the Lower East Side, including Participant Inc, Magenta Plains and Bridget Donahue. We ended up at Perrotin for an exhibition by the Colombian artist Iván Argote, who has a major piece on the High Line, this giant pigeon called “Dinosaur.” His show at Perrotin brings together more kind of guerrilla actions in the public space, including videos of him repairing sidewalks or dressing up existing statues.

I woke up very early to catch a plane and go to the art fair Expo Chicago, where I was invited to give a talk. I don’t go to Chicago that often, so I went a day earlier to catch a million shows in a very short time.

I started with the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, where they had an exhibition by a collective from Uganda called Wakaliga Uganda. They produce action movies on incredibly low budgets, like, $200. Then I walked across to the Neubauer Collegium, where there was an exhibition by Betye Saar. It showcased drawings and archival materials and dresses from the 1970s, when she worked as a costume designer.

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