Kassel, Germany
12 June - 19 September 2027
Artistic Director: Naomi Beckwith
Artistic Team:
Carla Acevedo-Yates, Romi Crawford, Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro, Xiaoyu Weng
© documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH, Artistic Direction documenta 16, Naomi Beckwith, Kassel 2024. Photo: Nicolas Wefers
On 18 December 2024, Naomi Beckwith was announced as the Artistic Director of the forthcoming documenta 16, selected by the international Finding Committee and appointed by the Supervisory Board.
Naomi Beckwith is Deputy Director and Jennifer & David Stockman Chief Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation in New York where she oversees collections, exhibitions, publications, curatorial programs, and archives and provides strategic direction within the international network of affiliate museums.
more about N. Beckwith
On the occasion of her appointment, Naomi Beckwith says: "It is the honor of a lifetime to be selected as Artistic Director for documenta 16. documenta is an institution that belongs to the entire world, as much as it belongs to Kassel, as well as an institution that is in perpetual dialogue with history as much as it is a barometer of art and culture in the immediate present. 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."
Naomi Beckwith; Mami Kataoka and Yilmaz Dziewior, members of the Finding Committee at the press conference, 18 December 2024
On behalf of the six-member Finding Committee, Yilmaz Dziewior, Director of Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and Mami Kataoka, Director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, explained the choice today as follows: "It was not easy to reach a decision. Our discussions reflected the complexity and entanglement of the current situation of documenta. We are convinced by Naomi Beckwith’s expertise and international curatorial experience. Her proposal for documenta 16 addresses artistic practices that give us tools to think possible futures together."
Romi Crawford, Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro, Xiaoyu Weng, Carla Acevedo-Yates, and Naomi Beckwith (f.l.t.r.)
© documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH. Photo: Nicolas Wefers
In August 2025, Artistic Director Naomi Beckwith announced her core team: The ensemble of Carla Acevedo-Yates, Romi Crawford, Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro and Xiaoyu Weng will work with Beckwith to develop the exhibition, publications and programming of documenta 16.
Naomi Beckwith: “I am grateful to walk with this team in crafting documenta 16. I admire their independence of spirit and thought which, for each, is fueled by their generosity to artists and audiences alike. We are all excited to traverse, together, myriad fields of current artistic practices and to be in dialogue with the immense issues shaping our planet’s manifold social and cultural landscapes and its futures.”
The Finding Committee of documenta 16 is made up of the following members:
On 28 January 2025 documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH announced Tania Coen-Uzzielli, Nicole Deitelhoff, Susanne Gaensheimer, Diane Lima, Christoph Menke, and Thomas Sparr as members of the newly founded Scientific Advisory Board. They have been appointed for five years by the shareholders’ meeting at the proposal of the Supervisory Board and in consultation with the Management Board.
With immediate effect, the Scientific Advisory Board will advise and support the Supervisory Board and the Management Board of documenta gGmbH on a technical and scientific level. Its members will address current social and academic discourses within the specific context of documenta gGmbH and harness these for the further development of documenta. They will promote the professional and curatorial networking of documenta gGmbH while contributing their own and other relevant international, outward-looking and pluralistic perspectives from science and research.
(From documenta press information.
© Cover photo on top: Haupt & Binder, universes.art)
Like for all editions since 1997, Universes in Universe will publish a Special about documenta 16. In the meantime, see:
documenta Special 2022
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