Her first public address as the artistic director of Documenta 16 was, as expected, a carefully choreographed introduction to her curatorial methodology and intellectual framework. Yet, what stands out is that, despite governmental efforts to preempt controversy and an imperative to address the disillusionment of radical voices who see continuity as a betrayal, Naomi Beckwith already underscored the necessity of interdisciplinarity, non-hierarchical collaboration, and global interconnectedness – quoting what the artist Arthur Jafa calls “a principle of discrepancy.” Beneath this expansive rhetoric, however, lies a strategic vagueness. Her vision appears calibrated to keep political influence at bay – a decision that, in this context, seems as determined as it is cautious. Rather than issuing grand political statements, Beckwith articulated a curatorial rhetoric rooted in personal and collective historical consciousness and the agency of artistic practice, allowing the images from her presentation, projected on the wall, to voice what she chose not to say. I thank her for that discrete, but very powerful, move.
One of the key moments of her lecture centered on a photograph taken of the blue sky in Chicago paired with a credit card of the same color. The image was created by the artist Cauleen Smith. The landscape seen was not incidental – it was near Beckwith’s own birthplace and the neighborhood where she was raised. This geographic connection carried a deeper resonance with the histories and creative heritage linking Chicago’s diverse communities and those of Berlin. In the first half of the 20th century, the historian David Levering Lewis chose the term “congregation” over “segregation” to emphasize how Black communities actively constructed their own cultural and social ecosystems. These spaces, shaped by linguistic and artistic traditions, were necessary for survival and self-definition, something Beckwith linked to her own subjective formation. Well into the 2000s, German was still spoken among neighbors in Chicago’s Lincoln Square, just as Black cultural enclaves continued to foster their own aesthetic codes and systems of meaning.
Fig. 1
Beckwith grew up at the tail end of an era marked by extraordinary artistic and intellectual energy within Chicago’s Black community. This was a time when artists saw themselves as agents of transformation, reshaping not only their own narratives but also those of the broader world. Their efforts generated images that allowed Black individuals to see themselves as beautiful and powerful in a society that often denied them both qualities. This ethos was deeply intertwined with Pan-Africanism, a movement of transnational solidarity that resonated strongly as African and Caribbean nations gained independence from European rule. Pan-Africanism did not stop at the Black Atlantic, however; it forged alliances with liberation struggles in Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe, culminating in the rise of the Non-Aligned Movement in the 1950s. This history, Beckwith suggested, has shaped her curatorial sensibility, instilling a belief that artistic and intellectual work could – and should – extend beyond national or geographic boundaries.
Her trajectory as a curator was formalized in The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, an exhibition she co-curated 2015 a.o. with Dieter Roelstraete, a former member of the Documenta 14 team. In her lecture, Beckwith paid attentive tribute to past Documenta contributors, particularly recognizing the role of ruangrupa, whose vision for Documenta 15 expanded the exhibition’s geopolitical scope and decentralized its structures rising to a planetary level in order to address (non)human rights. By mentioning ruangrupa in this way, she signaled an awareness of the forces that have shaped Documenta’s evolution – from its Cold War diplomatic origins to its attempted postcolonial expansions – and positioned herself within that lineage with a will to return to its roots.
Fig. 2
This sustained attention to historical and cross-disciplinary practices was further reflected in her reference of Wadada Leo Smith’s graphic scores – abstract, aerial-esque drawings intended to be interpreted and performed by musicians. But Beckwith also acknowledged the ways in which US cultural production is scrutinized from an external perspective, particularly when non-American curators engage critically with its legacy. It was in this context that she invoked the late Okwui Enwezor and Bisi Silva. This invocation marked a turning point in her lecture.
Enwezor’s Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America at the New Museum, exhibited 2021 after his passing and deeply rooted in the intellectual project of Documenta 11, examined the ways in which unresolved national traumas shape cultural production. It interrogated how segregationist legacies continue to structure contemporary life and questioned whether cultural encounters can ever be truly equitable. While Beckwith’s nod to Enwezor aligned her with a similar critical stance, her approach to migration and displacement appeared more focused on the subjective dimensions of these experiences rather than their structural or political implications.
This positioning became even clearer when she addressed the role of protest at Documenta. Unlike ruangrupa, who fully integrated forms of protest into their curatorial model, making them an active part of their methodology, Beckwith opted for a more distanced approach. She described how she would allow protests to take over the institution without intervening – acknowledging their presence without directly engaging with them. This signals an institutional strategy that neither antagonizes nor aligns itself with protest culture, emphasizing instead the protection of both the institution and the right to free expression. It is a curatorial stance that seeks to neutralize conflict rather than incorporate it; one that suggests an awareness of the political stakes, while also drawing a line between institutional responsibility and artistic freedom.
Fig. 3
Her framing of Documenta 16 as a response to the shattered expectations of the 21st century – replete as it is with wars, economic precarity, ecological disaster, rising autocracy, exemplified by the renewed bombing by Netanjahu's government in Gaza, beginning the same day as the event – was equal parts compelling and evasive. She rightfully criticized the impulse to merely catalog trauma, arguing that the exhibition should instead examine how artists have historically adapted to crisis. Yet this stance risks depoliticizing crises altogether, turning them into an abstract curatorial theme rather than an immediate material reality.
In reflecting on past moments of institutional protest, Beckwith presented an image of Nan Goldin and the P.A.I.N. collective’s 2019 demonstrations against the efforts of the Sackler family to art-wash their involvement in the opioid crisis, alongside an image from 2022 protests in solidarity with women in Iran. She positioned these moments as examples of institutions allowing activist interventions to unfold within their walls without interference, citing her own experience at the Guggenheim, where protesters were “let in” but not engaged with in order to “protect the staff.” This framing, however, signals institutional tolerance rather than participation. It is a way of saying: “We will not integrate protest into the curatorial framework, but neither will we suppress it. We will protect the institution and the right to freedom of speech for all.” In doing so, Beckwith sidesteps the more urgent question of what protest looks like today, when police violence against activists, students, and cultural workers is escalating.
The cultural environment has changed; protest is no longer something that institutions can afford to passively observe from behind their walls. Student activists such as Mahmoud Khalil from Columbia University are detained without charges or deported from Trump’s US, while German police increasingly brutalize civilians at protests and in other contexts. If Documenta is to remain a space for difficult conversations, it must address these realities head-on rather than relegating them to historical references. The reluctance to do so reflects a larger tendency in contemporary institutional discourse: the aestheticization of political struggle stripped of its consequences. If this won’t be a wholly aestheticized Documenta, then the question remains: how will it account for the cost of dissent today?
Fig. 4
This is where the inclusion of artists such as Naeem Mohaiemen becomes crucial. His Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017), shown at the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Kassel during Documenta 14, examined the political foundations of the Non-Aligned Movement, demonstrating how art can critically address global political histories without succumbing to local ideological constraints. Mohaiemen’s work represents a refusal to engage in the superficial moralism that often dominates institutional discourse, instead offering a nuanced critique that looks beyond reactionary censorship tactics – tactics frequently weaponized by the far right to silence progressive voices. His practice, like that of many artists Documenta has historically embraced, challenges not just the content of political debates, but the very conditions in which they are framed. If Beckwith truly seeks to let the artworks speak for themselves, these are the kinds of voices that must be amplified.
Despite these critiques, Beckwith’s insistence on letting the artworks speak for themselves is a stance worth defending. If, as she claims, this won’t be a wholly aestheticized Documenta, then her curatorial strategy must make clear – through the artworks rather than the rhetoric – that the perspectives she invites will address the suppression of basic rights, the silencing of protest, and the marginalization of radical voices. For this, she will need the support of art workers and activists – those willing to push against the art-perennial-industrial complex and resist the temptation to turn Documenta into yet another polished, Instagrammable affair. The challenge, then, is to support her vision for something truly groundbreaking. I’m game, how about you?
- Images
Cover - Portrait of Naomi Beckwith on March 18, 2025 © Dieter Schachtschneider
Fig. 1 - Glenn Ligon, Give Us a Poem, 2007
Fig. 2 - Installation view, The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music. 1965 to Now, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Jul - Nov, 2015
Fig. 3 - Nan Goldin’s P.A.I.N group held an anti-Sackler protest at the Guggenheim Museum, New York 2019 / Group of artists protesting in solidarity with Iranian women, 2019 © awc
Fig. 4 - Naeem Mohaiemen, Two Meetings and a Funeral, 2017. Installation view: Hessisches Landesmuseum, Kassel, Documenta © awc
