Michelle Azout (Photo: Carlos Aristizabal)[Missing Credit]
“It’s a very personal process,” she explains. “Because it’s about the artwork, but I feel it’s so much about the humans too – the family, the couple or the individual and what vision they have. Many times they cannot articulate what they like, so I am a bit of a translator in that way. And sometimes I’m a bit of a marriage counsellor too, in that I need to synthesise what each person likes and doesn’t like, and find that middle ground.”
She tells me about a favourite project she’s been working on with a young Jewish couple from Chicago, who were “very excited to build their collection in an intentional way that included Jewish and Israeli artists that they connected to”. For Azout, this project exemplifies her whole ethos of “conscious collecting”.
“I spent a long time in museums, and people would come in, they engage with the art, and they go home. And now I do kind of the opposite,” she says. “I help people find artworks that they love, that are meaningful to them, to incorporate into their homes, and sometimes offices. It’s about building collections that you can have long-lasting enjoyment from.”
Later, while we’re discussing why this approach is more important than ever, she tells me: “It’s been really hard when people own art that we bought in the last few years, to watch the artists accuse Israel of genocide and say other really aggressive statements. It’s really hard when you own the work on the wall and you’re living with it every day.”
Of course not all of her clients are Jewish, but they all know that she is. And when they buy the work of Israeli artists “in the end, the outcome is the same: they are living with great artworks and the artists are receiving support in a volatile market.”
Azout grew up in Miami, but was born in Puerto Rico. “My family’s story resembles other people’s stories… the general theme is they had to pick up and leave different countries many times,” she says. Three of her four grandparents arrived in Puerto Rico via Cuba. She describes the Puerto Rican Jewish community as “very small, close-knit and very Zionist”, adding: “I find that with Latin American Jews who have had to pick up so many times, this idea of a connection to Israel is maybe even more important than observing Judaism.”
After years living in New York and California, Azout says she is happy to be back – and raising her three children, aged 13, 11 and seven – in Miami.
“The Jewish community here has a very good relationship with the black community, the Cuban community, the Catholic community, law enforcement, government – we are very lucky in that way,” she says. “My children, thank God, are growing up in a very proud, unapologetically Jewish environment, and I believe that the kids that we’re raising here are going out into business, into universities, into the world with a backbone that you are not seeing from many places.”
Azout, who describes herself as an “accidental activist”, is also teaching by example. Like so many Jews, the course of her life changed irrevocably after October 7 – although for her the day when everything really changed was October 19, 2023. This was the day when Art Forum – which describes itself as “the magazine of record for the contemporary art world” – published an open letter in support of “Palestinian liberation”.
“The ground is still burning. We don’t even know who’s missing yet. They haven’t even gone into Gaza, and Art Forum publishes a letter condemning Israel… signed by thousands of artists and it was growing and growing,” she explains. “So that was the day that these two parts of my life – my career in art and my Jewishness – crashed into each other, and it’s never been the same since.”
Up until this point, she says that these parts of her identity “lived in two silos”.
“I always felt that I had my Jewish identity, which includes a very strong Zionist identity, and then I had my art profession,” she says. “Of course, I had Jewish friends in the art world, and I had friends who were Israeli artists, but to say that my personal Jewish identity was at all related to my work identity – they just weren’t.”
Azout says she feels “privileged” that when October 7 happened, she found herself in a position where she was able to speak out. “I wasn’t just starting my career, I wasn’t scared my gallery was going to drop me… I was an independent voice, working for myself, and I felt very comfortable being very vocal about the way that I felt, and very lucky that I was able to share my perspective in a moment where I was being told, secretively, by Jewish colleagues, curators and artists: ‘I can’t say what you say, but I feel the same way.’”
That’s not to say that she hasn’t faced any consequences. Like her friend, British-born Jewish artist Zoe Buckman, Azout’s name appeared on a blacklist of “Zionists” compiled by art world insiders in the months after October 7. While many people would have been perturbed by this, Azout says: “It was a little bit unnerving… I was a little bit hurt, I was uncomfortable, but it has not affected my work.”
She tells me that this framing reflects her “general high level philosophy”.
Jamie Lunder, gallery owner Mindy Solomon, artist Zoe Buckman, Michelle Azout and influencer Ariel Penzer (Photo: Logan Fazio)[Missing Credit]
“Antisemitism is not going anywhere, and I consider it my role nowadays to try to just share what it is to live a meaningful, proud Jewish life in my projects,” she says. “All of this is going on, and it’s just a storm of chaos and negativity in the world, and I describe it as, sometimes you have to put your blinders on and just zero in on what you do.”
It’s from this place that Azout’s side projects have been born. Aside from HOME I LAND, she’s also been working closely with Ariel Penzer, who founded Art World for Israel and the Bloomstead artists residency. “The idea is that now there is a network to assist and support each other when things happen,” she explains, telling me about how the community rallied around a group of Jewish and Israeli artists who had their booth at an Art Basel Miami Beach art fair cancelled the day before the show was due to open. “This movement is actually, like, boots on the ground, getting stuff done.”
She is driven by a real passion for the Israeli art that she champions, artists whose work spans from textile to painting to digital art. She loves the work of Guy Yanai, Nir Hod, Michal Rovner and Tal Shochat.
Sculpture by Arik Levy (Photo: Zina Perlman)[Missing Credit]
Painting by Guy Yanai (Photo: Zina Perlman)[Missing Credit]
Painting by Boaz Noy (Photo: Zina Perlman)[Missing Credit]
Azout admits that working on these projects alongside her day job and being a “very hands on mom” is “a lot of work”, but insists she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I feel very lucky that after working 20 years, somehow I have the privilege and the ability to put together these projects that are meaningful and support these artists in a time when not many people are doing that. I find that to be very energising,” she says. “Each of us has our own role in this moment, and I believe that mine is to elevate and provide this platform.”
