Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, chief curator at the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art in Turin since 2002, has been named artistic director of Documenta 13, which takes place in Kassel in 2012. She succeeds Roger M. Buergel, artistic director of the last Documenta, in 2007.

Christov-Bakargiev was the artistic director for the 2008 Sydney Biennale, which she titled Revolutions – Forms That Turn. In the run up to the Biennale, Christov-Bakargiev lamented what she called 'Biennale Syndrome': 'In a world where there are 104 biennales, if not more, we are near a kind of collapse [due to the] over-presence, the over-visibility of art. It's not about an excess of existence of art in the world, as a natural human impulse, but it is about the circulation of art, and the exhibition of art.' She responded by leaving many spaces of the Sydney Biennale empty.

From 1999 to 2001 Christov-Bakargiev was exhibitions curator at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, and she has written extensively on Arte Povera.