Just over a year ago, a renewed controversy over antisemitism caused the selection committee of documenta to fall apart. Now, there is a new artistic director for the world art exhibition: Naomi Beckwith will curate the next edition in Kassel.

The appointment was announced today, Wednesday, December 18th in Kassel. Naomi Beckwith is the Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. There, she oversees collections, exhibitions, publications, curatorial programs, and archives, while also shaping the strategic direction within the international network of affiliated museums. Previously, she held curatorial positions at the MCA Chicago and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

The selection committee for the artistic direction of documenta 16, consisting of four women and two men internationally active curators—Yilmaz Dziewior, Sergio Edelsztein, N’Goné Fall, Gridthiya Gaweewong, Mami Kataoka, and Yasmil Raymond – only had just under six months to decide who would be in charge of the world’s largest art show. They had only been tasked with finding an artistic director in July 2024.

“The high-caliber selection committee has made a first-class choice,” says Lord Mayor Sven Schoeller. “There were quite a few people who had already pronounced Documenta dead last year. But we have always believed in documenta.” Art Minister Timon Gremmels (SPD) emphasized that it was “a load off his mind today”. The documenta is an institution of great international appeal, but also of great responsibility.”

Beckwith is only the second US curator of documenta, after the Italian-American Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev in 2012, and the first Black woman curator to lead the international exhibition.

“This was a shock, a surprise, but also a great joy”, Beckwith said at the Kassel press conference. “I have looked at every Documenta since documenta 12. I was obsessed with the concept of documenta from the moment I was introduced to it. There is no other project in the world that allows such deep thought, deep research, and close work with artists. I am here as someone who is eager to learn about Kassel, eager to work with the team, eager to think about global practices from a city that is really quite global in and of itself.”

This marked the second attempt to fill one of the most prominent positions in the art world. Since the antisemitism controversy at documenta fifteen in 2022, curated by the Indonesian collective ruangrupa, the world art exhibition has faced intense criticism. At the end of 2023, following the withdrawal of an Israeli member and a discussion about accusations of anti-Semitism against another member, the entire committee resigned, prompting a restart of the process to appoint an artistic director for documenta sixteen.

In May this year, the dcumenta supervisory board announced that it would proceed with its 2027 edition, but without installing a code of conduct for its artistic director. This was among the recommendations set out by documenta’s appointed expert advisory panel, following the previous iteration’s controversy. Then, before announcing the directorship, the documenta supervisory board chair Sven Schoeller today said that a new code of conduct will in fact be instilled – and made publicly available in due course. ‘Our code of conduct is based on respect for human dignity, which itself is based on the necessary guarantee of artistic freedom and at the same time protects us from discrimination against human beings’, Schoeller said.

The world art show in Kassel is considered one of the most important exhibitions of contemporary art, alongside the Venice Biennale, which has recently announced the appointment of Cameroonian-Swiss Koyo Kuoho as its next curator for the 2026 edition. For the first time in history, two of the world’s most important art biennials and quinquennials are being curated by Black women.

Profile

Naomi Beckwith is Deputy Director and Jennifer & David Stockman Chief Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation in New York. There she oversees collections, exhibitions, publications, curatorial programs and archives and is responsible for the strategic direction within the international network of affiliated museums. Previously, she held curatorial positions at the MCA Chicago and the Studio Museum in Harlem. A graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Beckwith has (co-)organized renowned exhibitions and monographic projects, including the award-winning exhibition Howardena Pindell: What Remains to Be Seen (2018, MCA Chicago, USA) and The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now (2015, MCA Chicago, USA). She was a member of the curatorial team for the realization of the exhibition Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America (2021, The New Museum, New York), conceived by Okwui Enwezor before his death. Her exhibitions, lectures and publications focus on the impact and resonance of Black culture on multidisciplinary practices in global contemporary art. As a scholar and art historian, Beckwith has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (both Chicago, USA). She has received fellowships for the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia (USA). Beckwith was awarded the 2024 David C. Driskell Prize for African American Art and Art History by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (USA). She is also currently leading the curatorial team at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris for the fall 2025 exhibitions known as the “American Season”.

Documenta 16 is scheduled to take place from June 12 to September 19, 2027.

Additional sources: Monopol, Artnews