Jenny Schlenzka, a curator at MoMA PS1, is about to move from one old school building to another. In February, she will become the artistic director of Performance Space 122 — known as PS122 in a nod toward the building’s former use as a public school.

Ms. Schlenzka, 38, succeeds Vallejo Gantner, who announced in May that as soon as his replacement was found, he would step down from the organization, a downtown hub of innovative performance and the host of the annual Coil festival, which begins on Tuesday.

At PS1 — which is also in a former school building, this one in Long Island City, Queens — Ms. Schlenzka created the program Sunday Sessions, which featured performers like Ann Liv Young and Justin Vivian Bond. Before that, she was an assistant curator at PS1’s affiliate, the Museum of Modern Art, where she worked with artists including the cerebral choreographers Jérôme Bel and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker.

She will be the third artistic director in the history of PS122, which was founded in 1980, and is its first female leader. In an interview, Ms. Schlenzka said that it was time for more women to lead arts institutions, generally.