Documenta 16 Announces All-Female Artistic Team
133Aug. 19, 2025
Naomi Beckwith, wholate last year was named curator of Documenta 16, has appointed an all-female artistic team,Artnewsreports. Beckwith is the first Black woman to curate the German quinquennial since its founding in 1955; she is the second American-born curator, after Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev in 2012, to lead it. Helping her to organize the event will beCarla Acevedo-Yates,Romi Crawford,Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro, andXiaoyu Weng.Documenta16 is slated to run in Kassel from June 12 to September 19, 2027.
Known for her expertise in the areas of Caribbean and Latin American contemporary art, Acevedo-Yates has held curatorial roles at the Michigan State University Broad Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Rodríguez Castro is a writer and editor and a onetime fellow at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at the Free University of Berlin. Crawford, who is professor of visual and critical studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, founded the Black Arts Movement School Modality and New Art School Modality platforms. Weng last week was nameddirector of New York experimental exhibition space Art In General, which is returning after having been shuttered for several years. She is currently the artistic director of the not-for-profit Tanoto Art Foundation in Singapore and previously led the Art Gallery of Ontario’s modern and contemporary department.
“I am grateful to be working with this team on Documenta 16. I admire their independence of spirit and thought, characterized by a deep respect for artists and audiences alike,” Beckwith said in a statement. “We look forward to exploring the diverse fields of contemporary artistic practices together and engaging in dialogue with the pressing questions shaping our planet’s social and cultural landscapes and their futures.”