Category: Curator
Nationality: American
Last Year: 65

Documenta is the dizzying summit of curatorial seriousness, and in 2012 Christov-Bakargiev makes the ascent. Certainly she, as artistic director, along with Chus Martínez, who heads up the clutch of curators, are promising stewards. Christov-Bakargiev has been chief curator of the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art in Turin and senior curator of PS1, and curated the 2008 Biennale of Sydney; she’s also effectively trailed her Documenta with 100 Notes – 100 Thoughts, a series of artist’s notebooks. For Kassel, the main thing we know is this: no central curatorial concept. In a video on the Documenta website, the director holds a dog and expounds on interspecies dynamics, how too much emphasis is placed on the human, ‘degrowth’, and how to mix contemporary art with the historical avant-garde. Can she bring new dogs, old tricks and planetary consciousness together? Wait and see.