Catherine David

Art historian and curator Catherine David was deputy director of the Musée national d’art moderne (MNAM) - Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and head of the Research and Globalisation department from 2014 to 2021.

From 1982 to 1990, she was curator at the MNAM and from 1990 to 1994 at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris.

From 1994 to 1997, she served as artistic director for documenta X in Kassel, Germany (1997). In 1998-2003 she has been director of the long-term project Contemporary Arab Representations, initiated by Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona.

Between 2002 and 2004, she was director of the Witte de With Center of Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

In the last fifteen years she curated the ADACH Platform for Visual Arts at the 53d Venice Arts Biennale (2011); the Hassan Sharif retrospective Experiments & Objects / 1979 – 2011 presented at Qasr Al Hosn in Abu Dhabi (2011); MARWAN: Early Works 1962 – 1972 at the Beirut Exhibition Center, Beirut (2013) and Serralves Foundation, Porto (2014); Unedited History. Iran 1960-2014 at the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris and at MAXXI in Rome (2014); and Dia al-Azzawi: A Retrospective (From 1963 until Tomorrow) at Mathaf and Al Riwaq in Doha (2017).

As deputy director of the MNAM Centre Georges Pompidou (2016-2021), Catherine David curated several projects among which: Wifredo Lam (2015); Memories from the futures. Indian modernities (2017); Latiff Mohidin: Pago Pago (1960-1969) (2018); Yuan Jai (2020), Bagyi Aung Soe (2020) and S.H.Raza (2023).

documenta X 1977-2025

Documenta X wanted to test the challenges and the limits of what a large international project (not reduced to an exhibition) could be at the end of the XXth century, when many signs of the growing instrumentalisation and spectacularisation of esthetical practices were already visible.

Re-marking the lines of experimental and critical art developed from the late 50’s on and till the mid-end 70’s, documenta X tried to figure out the conditions of possibility and visibility of renewed experimental and critical attitudes and practices in the now of 1997.

Where are we now in 2025 ?