It is a smart, a good, and above all a safe choice: Naomi Beckwith will be the new curator of Documenta number 16, the world's most important exhibition in 2027. This was announced this Wednesday at a press conference in kassel announced. Beckwith has been deputy director and chief curator of the Guggenheim Museum in New York since 2021. It also comes from the old heart of the modern, global art world. She has experience running a large arts institution. An art institution that, like Documenta, had also run into crises in the past.
We remember: The last Documenta 15 was mired in controversy over anti-Semitic image content that was only discovered after the exhibition opened. There was heated debate about how to properly deal with these incidents, the managing director of Documenta lost her position because of it, and there were processing commissions and reform proposals. At the end of 2023, the original search committee finally collapsed shortly before the election of the Documenta 16 curator position – the Russian artist Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger withdrew after October 7th because Documenta did not want to pause the jury work despite the terrorist attack. When it became known that jury member Ranjit Hoskoté had signed an open letter from the anti-Israel boycott movement BDS, he also resigned. In the end, the entire remaining search committee did.
The search for the new artistic director of Documenta was then restarted, the structures of Documenta gGmbh were changed, and a scientific advisory board was put together. Two representatives of the Federal Commissioner for Culture, Claudia Roth, now sit on the supervisory board of Documenta gGmbH. The co-chairs of Documenta, the Mayor of Kassel Sven Schoeller (Greens) and the Hessian Minister of Culture Timon Gremmels (SPD), were visibly proud at the press conference today that the newly appointed jury, Naomi Beckwith, was so smart and professional, cosmopolitan and likeable Curator found. Beckwith was already there.
Beckwith said that she had seen every Documenta since Documenta 12 in 2007 and that she was “obsessed” from the concept of this institution. The curator, who was born in Chicago in 1976, is a super professional; before her appointment at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, she organized exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago for years – and especially exhibitions with works by black US artists – Artists and artists from Africa were shown. The Guggenheim went through serious crises; before Beckwith started there, it was under pressure; there were also accusations of racist discrimination. Beckwith can now also deal with sponsors is firm in the current discourses.
Beck called Documenta 15, curated by the Indonesian collective ruangrupa, a great experiment in decentralization. But she also made it clear that she acts in a very centralized manner and promised that there would be no unpleasant surprises – and was referring to the images with anti-Semitic content at the last Documenta. They work very closely with the artists they exhibit and know their work, even their thinking, as she added with subtle irony. “No form of anti-Semitism is allowed in an exhibition that I put together.” Neither is racism or other discrimination.
In their search for works of art, they will go to the global south, to the “global majority“, but also to the global north, said Beckwith. She has less time for this than the curators before her: there are only two and a half years left until the opening in 2027. They could deal with that, other large exhibitions would also have similar ones However, Beckwith has already indicated that she would like to reduce the number of exhibition locations in Kassel.
Beckwith believed that artists were the masters of dealing with crises. They would create new things even when resources are scarce and work together to solve problems. Sentences that cultural politicians certainly like to hear. (The Documenta budget should remain at around 42 million euros as in 2022 and will not be increased despite increased costs.)
According to Beckwith, he wants to balance the agitation that many artists are driven to with the context in which they work. At the Guggenheim Museum they also had to deal with the polarizations in view of the current global political situation. She announced that people should feel safe and free in the dialogue at Documenta 16. It probably won't always be comfortable, and that's what she adds.
