Three months after Nancy Spector stepped down as artistic director and chief curator of the Guggenheim Museum amid accusations of racism, the museum named Naomi Beckwith, who is black, for the position of deputy director and chief curator.
“If you look at the cultural landscape – especially in the United States – it is obviously one of the most outstanding leaders today, with enormous potential as well,” said Richard Armstrong, the museum’s director. “She is very adept at identity issues and, especially, at multidisciplinary art. We have to think about the growth of Guggenheim in the coming years, so he needs to be a person with enormous capacity. “
Beckwith, 44, who since 2018 serves as a senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, will oversee collections, exhibitions, publications, curatorial programs and archives in her new position, which begins in June. It will also provide strategic guidance, the museum said.
In an interview, Ms. Beckwith said her work will include bringing “greater diversity to museum and exhibition collections”.
Mrs. Beckwith goes to the Guggenheim even when the museum is going through a difficult chapter. In 2019, the guest curator of the museum’s Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition, Chaédria LaBouvier, who is black, accused Guggenheim of racist treatment.
The museum subsequently hired its first full-time black curator, Ashley James, although Guggenheim said the appointment was not a response to LaBouvier’s experience.
Last June, a letter signed “The Department of Curation” called for massive changes to “an unfair working environment that allows racism, white supremacy and other discriminatory practices”. In response, Guggenheim announced a two-year plan to create policies to denounce discrimination and develop diversity programs.
An independent investigation in October found no evidence that Ms. LaBouvier “has been subjected to adverse treatment based on her race”. But the museum simultaneously announced that Spector, who is white, was leaving after 34 years with Guggenheim “to seek out other curatorial ventures and finish her doctoral dissertation.”
While some may see Mrs. Beckwith as a Guggenheim effort to find a quick fix for her recent turmoil, Armstrong said, “This is not the case.”
“It’s about the future of the institution,” he continued. “What is promising is that our team and our board are committed to this type of change. So it’s not just Naomi; it’s Naomi in concert with a large group of people. “
Mrs. Beckwith also said that she did not see herself as a Band-Aid. “I would not have taken this position if I did not feel that the museum was not doing that healing work, which is true,” she said. “What I heard clearly from Richard is that they are doing the job themselves. They are simply looking for a partner in this. “
At MCA, where Ms. Beckwith has held curatorial positions since 2011, she has focused on issues of identity and multidisciplinary practices through exhibitions such as the first major research by African American artist Howardena Pindell and the legacy of the black avant-garde in “The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now ”and“ Homebodies. ” She also developed a project with British-Nigerian sculptor Yinka Shonibare, whose work explores race, colonialism and cultural identity.
Mrs. Beckwith – who received her bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and her master’s degree from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London – was previously an associate curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem. She served on the Guggenheim Hugo Boss 2020 jury and as a member of the curatorial team for “Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America,” which opens in February at the New Museum.
Calling it “an integral part of Guggenheim’s executive leadership” in its press release, the museum said Beckwith’s expertise will include advising on global art initiatives; partnership with the curatorial teams of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice; and collaborating in the development of the future Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi.
Beckwith said he hopes to be part of Guggenheim’s transformation efforts. “We preserve art history for future audiences,” she said. “It is now clear that a museum’s job is not just to preserve art history, but to preserve various art histories.”