Documenta 16 Curator Naomi Beckwith Says Some Artists Declined to Participate Due to Germany’s Stance on Gaza
Naomi Beckwith, the Guggenheim Museum’s deputy director and chief curator, said in an interview with Die Zeit that “a few” artists have declined invitations to participate in Documenta 16 because of Germany’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza and perceptions that artists are not free to show what they want in Germany. Documenta, held every five years in Kassel, has faced sustained controversy since Documenta 15 in 2022, and its entire curatorial selection committee resigned in 2023; Beckwith was appointed organizer in 2024. Beckwith said she is focused less on her personal views than on restarting dialogue, and she addressed the 2022 scandal involving Taring Padi’s mural featuring an antisemitic caricature, saying “something like that won’t happen again” and that lessons were learned. Documenta has since adopted new measures including a code of conduct referencing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism; Beckwith said she never signed it because “I wasn’t asked to do it.”
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