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AWT TALKS 2025｜SYMPOSIUM What’s Going On (Ai no Yukue): How Art Makes Sense
Naomi Beckwith × Adam Szymczyk × Keiko Okamura × Andrew Maerkle
At a time when societies are losing shared languages and values, and multiple crises and geopolitical divisions increasingly overlap, how can art help us understand—and rethink—what is going on?
The 2025 AWT Talks Symposium takes its point of departure from Marvin Gaye’s groundbreaking 1971 album What’s Going On and its Japanese title, Ai no Yukue.
The keynote address is delivered by Naomi Beckwith, Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, and Artistic Director of documenta 16. She is joined by Adam Szymczyk and Keiko Okamura, with Andrew Maerkle moderating the discussion.
Drawing on their respective curatorial practices, the speakers consider how art engages with reality while also opening up alternate perspectives on it. Their presentations and discussion address the histories and politics of museums, performance and moving images, public institutions, Marvin Gaye and the Black Arts Movement, community, care, resistance, resilience, and the possibilities—and limits—of political action through art.
NAOMI BECKWITH
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Naomi Beckwith is Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation in New York. A respected scholar and art historian, Beckwith has contributed to numerous catalogues and periodicals. Her acclaimed exhibitions and publications have centered on the impact of identity and the resonance of Black culture on multidisciplinary practices within global contemporary art. These include “Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers,” on view through January 2026 at the Guggenheim Museum, New York; “Howardena Pindell: What Remains to Be Seen” (2018) and “The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now” (2015) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and “30 Seconds off an Inch” (2009–10) at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Beckwith is Artistic Director of documenta 16 in Kassel, which will take place in 2027.
ADAM SZYMCZYK
SPEAKER
Adam Szymczyk is a curator, author, and editor based in Zurich. He is currently a curator at the Büro für geistige Mitarbeit at Kunsthaus Zürich. From 2014 to 2017 he was Artistic Director of documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel, and from 2003 to 2014 he was Director and Chief Curator of Kunsthalle Basel. In 2022 he founded Verein by Association, a nonprofit association for contemporary art and culture in Zurich. Recent exhibition projects include “Tirana Patience” (cocurated with Nataša Ilić) at the National Gallery of Arts, Tirana (2019); “Yannis Tsarouchis: Dancing in Real Life” at Wrightwood 659, Chicago (2021); “Other Voices, Other Rooms” at the Criminal Investigation Department of the Zurich Municipal Police (2021); “Life, Without Buildings” at gta exhibitions, Zurich (2022); “Ahlam Shibli: Dissonant Belonging” (cocurated with Vassilis Oikonomopoulos) at Luma Arles (2023); and “Wilhelm Sasnal: Painting as Prop” at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2024).
KEIKO OKAMURA
SPEAKER
Keiko Okamura is a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT), where she currently oversees special exhibitions programming. She previously worked at MOT from 1995 to 2007. From 2007 to 2021 she was a curator at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. During her time there she oversaw the inaugural edition of the annual Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions in 2009 and contributed as either director or curator to every subsequent edition through her departure. She also curated exhibitions including “Fiona Tan: Terminology” (2014), “Her Own Way—Female Artists and the Moving Image in Art in Poland: From 1970s to the Present” (2019), and “Yamashiro Chikako: Reframing the land/mind/body-scape” (2021). Her latest exhibition, “Aki Sasamoto’s Life Laboratory,” is on view at MOT through November 24, 2025.
ANDREW MAERKLE
MODERATOR
Andrew Maerkle is a writer, editor, and translator based in Tokyo. He is currently Editorial Director of Art Week Tokyo. From 2010 to 2024 he was Deputy Editor of the bilingual online publication ART iT. From 2006 to 2008 he was Deputy Editor of ArtAsiaPacific in New York, where he helped create the annual Almanac edition. Maerkle is a contributor to international journals including Aperture, Art & Australia, Artforum, and frieze. His book of translations Kishio Suga: Writings, vol. 2, 1980–1989 was published by Skira in 2025. From 2018 to 2023 he taught in the Graduate School of Global Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts.
