Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

After serving as Senior Curator at MoMA P.S. 1, where she initiated the first edition of Greater New York in 2000, Christov-Bakargiev returned to her hometown of Turin, Italy to act as Chief Curator of the Castelli di Rivoli Museum for Contemporary Art. In 2008, Christov-Bakargiev was the Artistic Director of the Sydney Biennale before serving as Artistic Director for this year’s dOCUMENTA (13) exhibition. Stemming from Christov-Bakargiev’s interest and academic background in the nexus of historical avant-gardes and contemporary art, dOCUMENTA (13) aimed to be a “holistic” analysis of the present day. Believing that dOCUMENTA is more a “state of mind” than an international art exhibition, she worked to craft an experience that both acknowledged and enhanced the overlap between political, cultural, scientific and artistic spheres. Christov-Bakargiev acknowledged Occupy protestors on Kassel’s Frierichsplatz as “artists of the dOCUMENTA” and thus sanctioned the Occupiers’ presence publicly, which she felt enacted “the possibility of re-inventing the use of public space” and embodied the idea of collective thinking. Christov-Bakargiev has also authored publications that focus specifically on the Italian Arte Povera movement, the South African artist William Kentridge, and the Canadian artist Janet Cardiff.

Lives and works between Kassel, Germany; New York, NY; and Rome, Italy