Naomi Beckwith, deputy director and chief curator of the Guggenheim Museum, named her art team for her version of Documenta, which will open in Kassel, Germany in June 2027.
“I am delighted to be working with this team on Documenta 16. I admire their spiritual and ideological independence, characterized by respect for artists and audiences,” Beckways said in a statement. “We look forward to exploring together various areas of contemporary art practice and having conversations with the social and cultural landscapes that make up the planet and its pressing issues.”
Beckves will be with Carla Acevedo-Yates, Romi Crawford, Mayra A. They will also run points on the publication and programming of Documenta 16 from June 12, 2027 to September 19, 2027.
Carla Acevedo-Yates is a curator and scholar specializing in contemporary American art with a focus on the Caribbean and Latin American diaspora. She has held curatorial roles at Michigan State University’s Expansion Museum of Art and Museum of Contemporary Art, and her recent projects include “Forecast Form: Art of the Caribbean Expatriate in the 1990s-Today-Today” and “Entre Horizontes: Art and Activities Between Chicago and Puerto Rico”.
Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro is a writer and publicist and was a researcher at the John Kennedy Institute, North American Institute, Liberty University, Berlin in 2018.
Romi Crawford is a professor of visual and critical studies at the Chicago School of Art, where she studies the intersection of artistic creation, economics, and politics. She is also the founder of the Black Arts Campaign School Form and the New Arts School Model Platform.
Xiaoyu Weng, who leads the modern and modern art department at the Ontario Gallery, is the new director of Alternative Space Art in New York, will hold the position while helping run the Tanoto Art Foundation. She previously worked at the Guggenheim Museum, where she created an online series censoring anti-Asian racism, focusing on the swelling views of contemporary artists during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is the first all-female art team to lead Documenta since its inception in 1955. Beckwith is the first black woman to run the show and the second American-born art director after Carolyn Chrolyn Christov-Bakargargiev in 2012.
Beckways’ appointment follows a protracted selection process following the deeply reviewed 2022 edition. Against the backdrop of Israel’s war in Gaza, the entire election committee resigned before Documenta could even name the curator of the upcoming version, forcing the festival to restart the selection process. A brand new selection committee was announced earlier this year.
Documenta’s Supervisory Board Chairman Sven Schoeller called Beckways’ appointment “the beginning of a new future for Documenta.”
