Naomi Beckwith, Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art.

Guggenheim Museum appoints Naomi Beckwith Deputy Director and Chief Curator, making her the first black person to occupy these positions.

BY KAZAD

Beckwith is taking over from Nancy Spector, the museum’s chief curator who departed in October.

With this appointment, Beckwith becomes the first Black curator to hold her new position at the museum. She follows in the path of Ashley James, who was hired by the Guggenheim in 2019 as associate curator of contemporary art. James was the first full-time Black curator in the museum’s history. She previously worked at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Yale University Art Gallery.

A Seasoned Curator

A seasoned and tested curator, Naomi Beckwith comes to this new position with a world of experience. The knowledge gained through the years will be handy as she oversees collections, exhibitions, publications, curatorial programs, and archives at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. In addition, Beckwith will provide strategic direction within the international network of affiliate museums for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

Beckwith’s new position makes her a member of the museum’s Executive Leadership team. Thus, she will play an important role in shaping the museum’s vision and the implementation of strategy across the museum and on its global initiatives.

Although Beckwith’s does not begin until June, excitement about her appointment is already percolating the Guggenheim Museum. At focus is the experience she brings to the job.  Richard Armstrong observed:

With her highly regarded accomplishments, scholarship that contributes to building a revised canon of art history and creative projects that connect artists of today with growing audiences, Naomi Beckwith will be a catalytic leader for our outstanding curatorial team.

Armstrong believes that Beckwith’s “expertise will be invaluable in advancing and amplifying an inclusive range of perspectives within the Guggenheim collection and culture.”

Looking Forward

Naomi Beckwith is excited and looking forward to bringing her world of experience to her new position:  

One cannot overstate the iconicity and consequence of the Guggenheim Museum—yet, refusing to rest on its laurels, it readily presents projects that disrupt art history’s mythologies. I’m excited to join the Guggenheim and its passionate team at a pivotal moment. I look forward to merging our shared goals of expanding the story of art, and also working to shape a new reality for arts and culture.

As an integral part of Guggenheim’s senior leadership, Beckwith has a lot of responsibilities ahead of her, chiefly of which is overseeing the creation and implementation of the museum’s exhibition program in New York, as well as convey a broad collection of strategies for the growth of all Guggenheim museums.

Guggenheim Race Response

The clamoring for inclusion, diversity, and racial equity in the top management positions of industries and institutions has increased in the past few years. Last year was particularly significant because the racial unrest across the country further exposed the impact of racial inequality and injustice across the American system. To remedy the situation, many companies began inserting people of color into their top management positions and teams. Guggenheim is just one of the recent institutions to follow this path.

The appointment of Beckwith’s is evidently a direct response to the recent accusations that the museum’s leadership fostered a racist environment. The accusation was leveled by former and current employees. In October, the museum’s chief curator Nancy Spector departed following accusations made by the guest Chaédria LaBouvier, the first black woman to stage an exhibition at the Guggenheim. LaBouvier, who organized the Jean-Michel Basquiat show at the museum contended that the museum attempted to usurp and erase her effort regarding Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition she organized for the museum. An independent review set up by the Guggenheim to investigate the issues of racism did not evidence of racism at the museum. Nonetheless, the museum now has a system to help it propagate inclusivity.

With this appointment, Beckwith becomes the first Black curator to hold her new position at the museum.

Beckwith holds a BA in history from Northwestern University in Chicago and an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.  She comes to the Guggenheim from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, where she has been for the past ten years. In 2018, she became the museum’s senior curator.

Naomi Beckwith In Focus

During her tenure at the MCA Chicago, she was focused on the impact of identity and multidisciplinary practices within contemporary art. These principles guided her exhibitions and publications. She organized and co-organized numerous acclaimed exhibitions MCA, including Howardena Pindell: What Remains to Be Seen, a retrospective that opened in 2018. The show later traveled to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond and Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum in Waltham, Massachusetts.   She also worked on “The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now” (2015).

Beckwith used her position at MCA to introduce the works of many artists to the Chicago art audience through solo exhibitions. Some of her solo shows were on The Propeller Group, Keren Cytter, Leslie Hewitt, William J. O’Brien, and Jimmy Robert. She also did a project with Yinka Shonibare CBE.

Prior to joining the MCA, Beckwith was the Associate Curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she organized exhibitions such as Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Any Number of Preoccupations (2011) and 30 Seconds off an Inch (2009–10).

In 2020, Beckwith was a jury for the 2020 Hugo Boss Prize administered by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She is a member of the curatorial team realizing Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America, an exhibition conceived by the late curator Okwui Enwezor for the New Museum.

The Long Dream

One of Beckwith’s recent shows is The Long Dream, a presentation of 70 Chicago artists who use their works to address the coronavirus pandemic and social unrest. Other shows include Prisoner of Love and Laurie Simmons: Big Camera/Little Camera. Beckwith serves on the boards of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Laundromat Project. She and has received fellowships from several institutions.

The addition of Naomi Beckwith to the Guggenheim management structure marks a paradigm shift for the museum, which like many institutions has been reluctant to embrace diversity, inclusion, and racial equity. Her appointment speaks volumes about Guggenheim’s desire and commitment to opening its door to more Black curators who have been longing to see themselves reflected in the industry. Hopefully, her inclusion will pave the path for others as Guggenheim strives to be more inclusive.  

What do you think about the appointment of Naomi Beckwith? Is the Guggenheim Museum doing enough to address the issue of race? Share your thoughts. Leave a comment.