CURATOR & COLLECTOR

Kamiar Maleki: Dear Tiffany, tell us a bit about yourself and your experience as an art collector!

Tiffany Zabludowicz: I am a collector and a curator. I moved back to London a year ago after nearly ten years in the US. When I got back, I decided to complete a Masters at the Courtauld, which proved to be an invaluable experience and I cannot wait to apply my new art historical knowledge to my collection. As a curator I run a space in NYC, Times Square Space, a residency and exhibition program in vacant offices in Times Square. My curatorial practice primarily involves installation and performance and I focus upon digital art and art made after the Internet. I am also co-chair of the Young Collectors Council at the Guggenheim Museum and a founding member of the Artemis Council at the New Museum. Most recently, I acquired a work by Katy Stubbs from Alma Zevi Gallery and I am so excited. She flits between influence from daily newspapers like The Sun to Greek mythology to tell darkly comic stories on the surfaces of her delicately detailed ceramic creations.

KM: You come from a family of collectors; do you actively take part in the family collection?

TZ: We all work together with the curators and the whole family and I love being part of team Zab! I am involved in most decisions and bring my own artists to the table. I also had the privilege of curating an exhibition at the collection last year, World Receivers (March-July 2019). I loved including works where I was involved in the acquisition process, for example by Tau Lewis and Puppies Puppies, among more established artists in the collection, such as Isa Genzken and Cindy Sherman.

KM: What is your earliest memory of the art world?

TZ: Michael Landy’s Break Down, 2001, organised by Artangel on Oxford Street. I remember conveyor belts on which he broke down everything he owned. Like a monk he shed himself of all his worldly possessions and I watched as before my eyes his car, his passport, his furniture and more sentimentally, his family photographs and his teddy bear, all gradually were ground to nothing. The boldness of the act, of systematically breaking down his home and his identity, was shocking and thrilling to me.

KM: Do you have a specific type of art that you collect?

TZ: I have noticed that my collection mostly contains emerging art that is made after the cultural and material shifts that occurred as a result of the inception of the Internet.

KM: You have transitioned from a collector into a curator, could you tell us about the process on how that happened?

TZ: Collecting gave me my baby steps into the art world. Through acquiring my first works (mostly editions), I started visiting art galleries and art fairs more, doing my first studio visits with artists, and really researching artist’s practices for the first time. These skills made it easier for me to travel down the road of becoming a curator when the time was right for me to do so. I curated my first show at Leila Heller gallery when I was twenty-one (Kiln, 2014) and it was because I was already a collector that I had the confidence to do that so young. Curating and collecting are both practices that require constant attention and honing and my practices evolve concurrently.

KM: Are you working on an exciting curatorial project now?

TZ: I am thinking outside of the box, or more precisely outside of the white cube, during this time, but nothing to announce yet.

KM: How do you see your role in the art world?

TZ: I am finding my way among a sea of talented people and I feel lucky everyday to be swimming in that sea. I love working with artists and facilitating their practices is my role as a collector and a curator. My role is also to walk my own path towards new discoveries. 

KM: Where do you discover most of the art you buy?

TZ: I spend a lot of time in Lower East Side of New York or London galleries. I also find a lot of new artists at MFA exhibitions. I learn a lot from art fairs and biennales. I like to see everything I can because only through footwork can discoveries be made. It is only through seeing an artwork that it can have a powerful enough affect for me to want to acquire it. My first step after seeing is research.

KM: What role do you feel satellite fairs like VOLTA could play in the future art fair landscape?

TZ: Bigger art fairs can lead to hegemony in the art world while satellite art fairs like VOLTA have more freedom to look in different directions and therefore often end up introducing more wild cards into the mix of galleries. This presents an opportunity for collectors to find young undiscovered artists and less known art from around the world.

KM: How have you changed your tactics in this all-encompassing virtual art world? What tools and platforms do you feel work the best for you?

TZ: I have enjoyed being able to do studio visits on Zoom with artists around the world and to keep up with exciting virtual programs at my favourite New York institutions with the YCC (Young Collectors Council) at the Guggenheim and the Artemis Council at the New Museum even from across the pond. At one point my movie nights were replaced with video art viewings as there were so many works available online for free for example at Daata editions, the New Museum’s Screen Series or Performa’s website too.

On the other hand, I am a curator, so above all I value seeing an exhibition in person and moving through a space. That experience is irreplaceable and so I have been seeing as much art in person as possible. It was strange to be living in the midst of COVID and for the first time not being able to see any exhibitions. Nothing replaces that experience.

KM: How do you see the art world changing in the times of the pandemic?

TZ: Change isn’t always bad. People are exiting lockdowns with a new normal and with a more thoughtful and rounded idea of art and representation; I am relieved the art history books are being updated finally to include more diversity although I am sad it took a pandemic to get here.

Follow Tiffany Zabludowicz on Instagram at @tifzab, as well as the residency and exhibition program @timessquarespace in vacant offices in Times Square in New York City.