Documenta is a contemporary art exhibition that has been held every five years in Kassel, Germany, since 1955. It is a closely-watched art world event that has seen its fair share of highly lauded curators and even some controversy in previous years. Documenta 16, happening June 12 - September 27, 2027, recently appointed esteemed art scholar, historian, and deputy director and chief curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Naomi Beckwith to curate its upcoming edition.
At the Guggenheim, Naomi oversees collections, exhibitions, publications, curatorial programs, and archives and provides strategic direction within the international network of affiliate museums. Previously, she has held curatorial positions at the MCA Chicago and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Her exhibitions, lectures, and publications have centered on the impact and resonance of Black culture on multidisciplinary practices within global contemporary art. In 2021, she served on the curatorial committee for the New Museum exhibition “Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America,” which was conceived by the late curator Okwui Enwezor (who organized Documenta 11) and focused on how Black artists have portrayed mourning and loss.
She is the first Black woman ever to curate the show in its 69-year history, as well as the second American-born curator ever to helm the art festival, after Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev in 2012. Her appointment comes after a lengthy and tumultuous selection process following Documenta 15 in 2022, which coincided with Israel's war in Gaza and antisemitism claims. The entire 2027 curatorial selection committee resigned before it could name a curator, forcing the organization to start from scratch. A new selection committee was named earlier this year.
Beckwith says in a statement: "I am humbled by the breadth of this responsibility and equally excited to share my research and ideas with this storied and generous institution: one that affords space and time for focus, deep study, exploration, experimentation, and awakenings for artists, curators, and audiences alike.”
Beckwith’s appointment marks the first time that both Documenta and the Venice Biennale—the world’s top two biennial-style art exhibitions—are being curated by Black women. We previously shared that Koyo Kouoh, a Cameroonian-born curator who currently leads the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, was named curator of the 2026 Venice Biennale.
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