Documenta has officially unveiled its replacement selection committee for the search for the next artistic director of the prestigious German five-year exhibition, a search that is still ongoing following the collective resignation of the original committee last year.
The new six-member selection committee is made up of Yilmaz Dziewior, Sergio Edelsztein, N’Goné Fall, Gridthiya Gaweewong, Mami Kataoka and Yasmil Raymond, all but one of whom have curated at least one major biennial.
Notably, the group includes three people based in Germany (Dziewior, Edelsztein and Raymond), while none of them were on the previous committee.
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One of the Israeli artists, Edelsztein, has also been selected for the committee, a move that will be seen as a response to the ongoing controversy surrounding Documenta 15 in 2022, which was met with widespread accusations of anti-Semitism. The previous committee also had an Israeli artist on it, but she resigned over the situation facing her country following the October 7 Hamas attack.
In Germany, Dziewior and Raymond are already well-known, the former as director of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and the latter as head of the Portikus Museum and the renowned Städelschule art school in Frankfurt until earlier this year. Edelsztein divides his time between Berlin and Tel Aviv, where he was longtime director and chief curator of the Tel Aviv Center for Contemporary Art, which he also founded.
Fall previously served as Black Commentsa major journal dedicated to African art. Gaweewong is the artistic director of the Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok. Kataoka is the director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo.
The six curators are currently filling the shoes of six other curators who suddenly resigned last November. At the same time as Israeli artist Bracha L. Ettinger’s departure, Indian poet Ranjit Hoskote also became the focus of controversy after the German media re-exposed the BDS letter he signed; he also resigned as a result.
Later, four other curators—Simon Njami, Gong Yan, Kathrin Rhomberg, and María Inés Rodríguez—also walked out, denouncing the exhibition for “a lack of the open exchange of ideas and development of complex and nuanced artistic methods that was expected of the artists and curators at Documenta.”
The resignations further fueled concerns that Documenta may never recover from the scandal surrounding its 2022 edition, Documenta 15, which sparked scrutiny of artworks containing anti-Semitic imagery and pro-Palestinian politics. But Documenta’s leadership has given assurances that the next edition, planned for 2027, will still take place, though Wednesday’s announcement did not specify a date.
Yet even with these assurances, statements from documenta’s leadership have left some concerned about the format of the next fair. While documenta will not impose a code of conduct on its next artistic director, it will expand its supervisory board to include representatives from the city of Kassel (where documenta is held every five years) and the state of Hesse (where Kassel is located).
In addition, a scientific advisory board of experts will be established and the next artistic director will be asked to give a speech on “their understanding of respect for human dignity and how this is ensured in the exhibitions they curate.”
Regarding the newly formed selection committee, Documenta General Manager Andreas Hofmann said: “I am confident that the expert and multi-perspective composition of the new selection committee will provide forward-looking advice to the artistic direction. This will lay the foundation for the international art world to once again become a familiar and welcome guest in Kassel.”
