Okwui Enwezor, curator of contemporary art, died at 55 – ARTnews

Enwezor at the opening of Documenta 11, which he organized in Kbadel, Germany, in 2002.

JOERG SARBACH / AP / REX / SHUTTERSTOCK

The curator Okwui Enwezor, whose incisor, thought-free and ambitious exhibits were essential to encourage the art world to take a more international view of contemporary art and history of art. Art, died at the age of 55 years. He had been fighting cancer for years. The Venice Biennale was one of the first to announce its death as Commissioner of the 56th edition in 2015. He was 55 years old.

Enwezor was the first curator of African descent to organize the Venice Biennale, an exhibition started in 1895, and the first non-European to oversee Documenta, the exhibition every five years in Kbadel, Germany, which He organized in 2002. The last issue, Documenta XI, defined his sensibilities of conservative: adventurous, flawless intellectual, and determined to rethink the functioning of institutions.

In anticipation of the opening of Documenta in June 2002, Enwezor has organized what it has called platforms – conferences, seminars and other projects – in Berlin, Vienna, New Delhi, St. Lucia and Lagos in Nigeria. The main exhibition featured artists from countries other than Europe and the United States, areas that had always dominated the exhibition.

"When I started, I always had what I thought was a program of change," Enwezor told Melissa Chiu during an interview with Asia Society in New York in 2014.

"The art world was very Eurocentric and very Western, and he needed seasoned curators to change it," said Els van der Plas, managing director of the Dutch National Opera & Ballet. the Wall Street newspaper In 2014. "Enwezor has positioned several projects in a very strong way, which has given a different view of the world and the history of post-colonialism, of Africa's contribution to the development of the planet and the diversity of African countries. positioned in the global debate. "

Venice and Documenta were only two of a long series of prestigious shows that he was following closely – a list that also included the 1996 Johannesburg Biennial and the 2008 Gwangju Biennale in South Korea.

This article will be updated.