Meet our Guest with Ché Zara Blomfield

Ché Zara Blomfield at Jelato Love, Palma de Mallorca. Artwork credit: Keith Allyn Spencer. Photo credit: Hannah-Lee Jade Turner

For this issue of Meet the Guest, Guest Work Agency Director and Founder Alana Kushnir interviewed Ché Zara Blomfield. Ché is a curator and writer from Aotearoa who has recently joined Guest Work Agency as Curatorial Associate. In London she founded the art space the Composing Rooms where she exhibited many artists who soon became globally recognised. She also co-founded Baron Magazine which has received press worldwide and worked with many established names such as Petra Collins and Donatella Versace. After six years in London she spent four years in Berlin, then moved to Mallorca, Spain where her and Javier Esteban ran a project space called Jelato Love until November 2019. Ché has also curated exhibitions in Amsterdam, Auckland, Paris, New York, and elsewhere with a focus on new practices that consider a contemporary networked perspective.

The word ‘curator’ tends to be thrown around quite loosely these days. What does being a ‘curator' mean to you?

I agree, the word ‘curator’ has shifted or even lost meaning, although it still means something to a niche art audience and that is: a person who creates concepts for and organises exhibitions. The word ‘exhibition’ could also be broken down - what is an exhibition if the art object no longer requires space? What are the contexts for art today? The issue of the so-called digital divide could be the reason I use the word curator - when I opened The Composing Rooms I tried to emulate a ‘high art’ gallery on both the website and in the physical space. I didn’t want to be a digital ghetto, which in hindsight I realise can be, ironically, more progressive. ‘Curator’ is a word associated with high art, rather than, say, ‘exhibition-maker’ which could maybe be seen as low-brow. Such words are just a form of game play that gives an ideological and hierarchical placement within the art system.

You moved to London from New Zealand at the tender age of 19. What prompted you to move to the other side of the world at such a young age, and how did you go about opening your own gallery?

I had an open ticket that allowed me to stay in London for a few months after the first family trip to Europe in 2007. I just fell in love with London and, as my father was born there I could stay. London was pre-recession and very different from how it is now. Everything seemed possible and I embraced that. The gallery developed from organising book launches, music events and disco parties. After a while, I got bored of late night scene but still wanted somewhere to connect people. The Composing Rooms was born out of wanting to bring people together and my passion for artist books. The first exhibition in 2010 included four artists who, amongst other things, self-published. This included the Australian artist Thomas Jeppe, as well as Paul Cowan from the U.S., Rasha Kahil from Lebanon, and Daif King from New Zealand. The first temporary space in Bloomsbury also housed Eleanor Brown’s art bookshop.

I’ve always admired how you manage to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to spotting new artistic talent. The Composing Rooms was the first gallery in the UK to show some key artists influenced by internet culture - Petra Cortright, Jon Rafman, and Kate Steciw to name a few. How did you find them? Did you know at the time you were on to something?

Thanks! My feeling was that the art in 99% of the "contemporary" art galleries in London seemed old and dusty. Meanwhile, I had found interesting art theory and work online that I knew was exciting and relevant to that moment. I mainly found the artists via a few select blogs: Gene McHugh's 'Post Internet', pooool.info, and VVORK (2006-2012).

In 2013 you moved to Berlin where you worked as Director at the gallery Neumeister Bar-Am while running the Composing Rooms also. How would you compare the Berlin art scene to the London art scene at the time?

Well the grass is always greener on the other side right? Many interesting artists were living in Berlin at the time, including Aleksandra Domanovic, Harm van den Dorpel, Aude Pariset, Timur Si-Qin… the list goes on. There were also a few galleries exhibiting the art that I was interested in such as Club Midnight, Tanya Leighton, and Société.

That said, when I got to Berlin I quickly learnt how cliquey and closed the scene was. In London the audience of the Composing Rooms was largely made up of art students from Goldsmiths along with some artists, gallerists and curators I had come to know. In Berlin the audience already had their places to go. Maybe it was simply because there was (and still is) SO MUCH art in Berlin and they are spoilt for choice. Another reason could be that my programming had become more idealistic and conceptual. I tried to avoid having exhibition openings and replaced them with events like tea ceremonies with Mai Ueda, book launches with internet artists Jodi.org, and cooking classes with Rainer Ganahl - a key figure in relational aesthetics. That didn’t help because people in Berlin generally went to galleries to socialise, network and drink beer!

You now live in Palma de Mallorca (of all places!) where you and your partner ran a project space called Jelato Love. Have you found setting up and running a gallery outside of a major art community centre like London and Berlin different?

Yes, at first the reception was exactly what we wanted: some of the local art people recognised we were bringing something new to the island and appreciated that, seasonal art tourists sought us out, and we had an open reception from our neighbours which was a really nice mix.

However, after less than a year we realised that neither the local art authority or established provincial galleries would welcome us. We were not considered to participate in any official art map or tour, even though there is only a handful of galleries on the island, and even fewer showing work of an international standard. In response to this, we exhibited many local artists with international artists in a big group show called Jelato for All. The exhibition had an audience of a lot of cool young people and we realised that wasn’t the direction we wanted to go in, so we decided to close. To make Jelato Love survive we would have had to be an island of our own and we just couldn’t manage that. No art space can just keep giving without anything in return. Of course, this is not just a problem in Mallorca. It is a wider hierarchical issue that exists everywhere, the bottom is the least supported. It is funny to consider this as a pun because you realise how upside-down the system is.

Who are some artists you are closely following of late, do you have any tips?

For the last few years I’ve been following Erin Jane Nelson, I’m glad to see she is doing so well. I’m still following Harm van den Dorpel, Aaron Graham, Rachel de Joode, Estrid Lutz, R.Lord and others as I have for many years.

In Australia the majority of art collectors collect Australian art and buy and sell within the Australian art market. What do you think of this approach?

There are very few art elites who travel to art fairs and/or buy major artworks by leading international artists. Buying local does make a lot of sense because one can see the work in the flesh and support a local art community, but it does have its limits.

Globalisation has meant artists are no longer measured against their local peers but to an international standard. Globalisation is highly problematic for art, because cultural values and political relevance differs greatly between countries and even smaller areas. London, Berlin, and New York all have their unique dialogues that the local artists can participate in, but the global art market, as well as technological developments used to make the art, seem to have homogenised the high-end output both aesthetically and conceptually, and artists seem to favour participating in this instead. A race to banality.

Perhaps the concept "think global, act local" needs to be considered. How does Australian art relate to artwork made elsewhere? What is happening elsewhere that can enrich a local discussion? We are living in an interconnected world and there are many different ways to experience art beyond the physical. Artworks enrich lives in many ways, and one of those ways is aesthetically, but the best works keep asking timeless and important questions.

What other approaches to collecting would you advocate for emerging collectors?

As we live in an increasingly global world, we are increasingly aware of the knock-on effects our individual actions have. This is one reason why art collectors could be broadening their horizons as well as seeking out local narratives and supporting emerging voices. For example, I think the art world is late in responding pragmatically to climate change. Looking beyond local art communities to buy large work from abroad that will come with a heavy carbon footprint doesn’t make much sense. The future of art may consider the global community, as well as art beyond the shipping crate.

My advice? Seek out the unusual - find video art, foldable works on fabric, smaller artworks, inflatables, wearable art, something that could be 3d printed locally, or buy what is already imported. The options are literally endless. Basically, just seek what is interesting and unconventional. The works that look least like Art now are probably what will be represented in the museums of the future. History has proven this.