Third, we can decide on a program and then execute it within weeks. There isn’t a lead time here locking down programming that has been conceived six months in advance.  That’s important at a time when things are changing on a week-to-week basis. What we’re looking to do is chronicle what we think is an important and defining time in our cultural transition.

The project will have an international advisory board. Who are some of the members?

We will present the complete list prior to our opening on March 7. For the time being I can say that every museum in New York will be represented, many of the major museums in Europe will be represented, every generation of international gallerists will be represented, and every generation of artists will be represented.

Also, each member of the board has, in his or her own history, embodied similar strategies of progressive work and engaged in multiple sectors of the art world. These are people who are already moving beyond the confines of their roles.

What programs are planned so far?

Most Thursday evenings, there will be a lecture, round-table discussion, screening, or performance. After we open on March 7, the following two to three Thursdays will be devoted to the economy. We’re going to have a town hall meeting as well as a panel discussion with keynote speakers from the international art world.

April will be a return to artist-driven content. Mika Tajima, who’s doing the inaugural ground-floor installation, will present a lecture with Sylvère Lotringer, editor of Semiotext(e); Christian Holstad will do one of his infamous slide lectures, which will relate to the project he’s doing on the rooftop; and Throbbing Gristle is going to perform — in the middle of the Derek Jarman installation — for the first time on the East Coast as part of a benefit for X on April 17. In May, activism will be the theme.

How did you come up with the name X?

It’s difficult to name something, because once you do you own it, and the idea of ownership is somewhat questionable right now — especially for the purposes of this project, which is meant to embrace temporary possibility and spontaneous action. So we thought, Let’s just symbolically mark the site. X is the Roman numeral for 10, so it yields itself to collective understanding. It is also a crossroads, in pictorial form. Cecilia Alemani, our curatorial director, was talking about the European notion of the piazza, or square, where people gather to see each other and to be in conversation, and how Chelsea really lacks that place. We hope to fill that gap, to provide an opportunity for all aspects of the art community to come together and participate in a variety of ways.