Christov-Bakargiev appointed director of Documenta 13

Writing in Rupert Murdoch's The Australian, Corrie Perkin reports that Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev has been appointed new artistic director of Documenta 13. Christov-Bakargiev has until 2012 to research and plan her exhibition. Like her predecessors, the curator will travel internationally to observe current art practices. In recent months, the ten-person selection panel, which included Kathy Halbreich, associate director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and Joseph Backstein, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow, whittled down the list of candidates to six. Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, who was on the Documenta 13 selection panel, describes the German event as the “art Olympics.” She says the artistic director’s role “is probably the plum job in the art world because of its high profile, but that high profile also makes it problematic. Carolyn’s appointment will cause a lot of discussion, as these things usually do.”