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Thom Oosterhof

Thom Oosterhof did not arrive at curation the usual way. New Zealand-born and now based in Amsterdam, he came to art through collecting, and to collecting from a career in business and real estate. There was a Max Gimblett painting in his parents-in-law’s hallway that hooked him. Then two small bars of silver from a drawer, sold to fund his first piece at a fair in Wellington. A decade on, he has built a collection he calls Tesoro. The word is Italian for “precious”; he only later noticed it was also an anagram of his own surname.

What followed is a curatorial practice with more than twenty-five exhibitions across Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Rome, Istanbul, and Taiwan, including projects for the 2025 Istanbul Biennial and a 2024 listing among the curators to watch. His shows lean on emerging artists and on themes that take some sitting with: affection, time, the negotiation between what holds us in place and what wants to break free of it. He talks about curating as storytelling and about himself as a “quiet shepherd”. He is more interested in the collector who stays for two hours than the one who stays for thirty minutes.

We spoke about the outsider route, what a studio visit actually looks like, the work he keeps coming back to in the current show, and where he thinks the art world has to go next.

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You came to curation through collecting, and before that through a career in real estate and business. How does someone without a formal art education end up shaping exhibitions, and does that outsider route change what you look for in a show?

For me, it is a gift and a curse. Part of me feels this kind of ‘inferiority’ when comparing myself to those with formal art history degrees or similar. Another part of me sees it as a defining strength. Allowing me to look at things with as little preconceived ideas as possible. Krishnamurti talks about this concept of ‘unlearning’ being the way to insight. And how our ‘education’ and obsession with knowing, is what gets in the way.. Drawing on experience, now having curated over 25 exhibitions, is what I lean on and the time and energy I put into the ideas I want to explore. That and the trust that by working with incredible artists, with myself as a kind of ‘quiet shepherd’, the exhibition will come together exactly as it was meant to.

You curate across Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Rome, Istanbul, Taiwan. What do you actually see when you move between those scenes? Are there things happening in one of them right now that the others haven’t caught yet?

Absolutely. It has taught me the difference between ‘noise’ and true engagement. Often when I work in a ‘major’ art city, the openings are packed, there’s a real bustle but it is short lived, people stay for 30 minutes, have a wine and then move on to the next show. When working in smaller cities, the patronage arrives engaged, asks constant questions, stays for hours and collects for the right reasons. It’s almost as if because there is less to see, less international exposure, when I come in with an international exhibition full of exciting talent, the appreciation is so much more. Which makes a lot of sense. There are no major galleries in Istanbul or Taiwan. Additionally, engaging with local communities is more important than ever. Explaining a work in person to an engaged patron is where galleries should be focusing their energies.

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What does a studio visit actually look like for you? Walk us through the moment you decide an artist is someone you want to work with, what you’re looking at, what you’re listening for, what you’re not telling them.

For me, studio visits are the backbone of a curatorial practice. I like to keep it super casual. Have a bit of a wander, try and find the works the artist might be hiding for whatever reason, and really just open up the conversation. Get to know them, understand their work further and really engage. In terms of a ‘moment’, for me it is all about passion. If an artist has an infectious energy for their work, and that doesn’t mean loud or necessarily extroverted, I feed on that. There’s something too about artists who are so devoted to their artistic life. To me that is both admirable and endearing. There’s that strange parallel between investing in a stock, whereby many people will look at the CEO rather than the performance of the company, weird analogy I know…I like to look at the artist themselves, as much as the work. Sometimes the work hasn’t yet caught up to where the artist is or is going. I love to watch that come to life.

 

The show brings together painting, sculpture, and photography in the same room. Why those three media, and what does each one do for the exhibition that the others can’t?

Curating is all about storytelling and by using these different forms of media, I can add depth to this story. What I also like about different media is that people are either more or less comfortable with it. For example, some people find their way into paintings easier than sculpture. By presenting these ‘challenges’ for the viewer, it engages their brain in a more holistic way. Sometimes knocking them off guard, encouraging them to perceive things differently. I also like presenting exhibitions that are not always easy to ‘understand’. That requires a degree of viewer ‘investment’ to really appreciate them. Making them work for it in a way. 

Take us inside one work in this show. Pick the piece you keep coming back to, and tell us what it does technically, what it does emotionally, and why you couldn’t leave it out.

Impossible question! With so few works, each is vital to the overall show and without them, there would be a gap. That being said, I think Lisa Jahovic’s work ‘Womb’ holds a unique position in the exhibition, being both sculptural and photographic. There is this sense of expansion and expression within the work, while constantly being confronted by the obvious ‘trapping’. It speaks to this notion of personal expression within certain confines. How we try and maintain our individuality in a world that only allows so much. I think this work is extremely poignant. The presence of the chair also represents this kind of fixed familiar structure. An everyday item that contains so much ‘use’ but concurrently provides only so much ‘wiggle room’. A seriously impactful work that I suspect many viewers will get lost in.

You’re a collector as well as a curator, which is a rare combination. Most curators work without ever having lived with art on their own walls. What does collecting teach you about curating that you couldn’t learn any other way?

To me, collecting is a privilege. All of what I do comes from a desire to support and champion the next generation of artists. Collecting is one way of doing this. Additionally one of the major learnings is the recognition of a work’s ability to change its meaning or its context depending on placement, mood, time of day etc. This understanding then informs my curatorial practice. By living with artworks, I am constantly in awe of how they reveal themselves over time. This is something I try to bring into my exhibitions. Encouraging slow looking.

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The exhibition text is essentially a thesis: that the human condition is now defined by constant elastic negotiation between structures that constrain us and impulses that seek to set us free. As a curator, why is that worth making a show about? What does putting it on a wall do that an essay can’t?

Awareness is the beginning of change. Understanding our own personal environments and the subtle forces that shape them is critically important. I hope that by bringing this idea to life, visitors are afforded an opportunity to explore this idea at their own pace, walking away from the exhibition with a renewed awareness and hopefully an idea or two that they can take into their own sense of being. There is also a freedom that comes from the knowledge that these feelings, that at times can be so personal, are actually shared. This then encourages individuals to reach out, discuss and ultimately find space within these ‘structures’. Funnily enough, they are structures that we can substantially dissolve with the right kind of action, perspective and conditions.

What’s a recent show, by another curator, that genuinely changed how you think about your own practice? What did it do that you wish you’d done?

Ooh I’d have to say the Brancusi exhibition at Neue National in Berlin. Curated by Klaus Biesenbach, the exhibition is a major retrospective of Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi’s sculptural, painting and photographic works. For me, the layout was spot on. They created these podiums for the works to sit on which only allowed you to get so close. It created this massive desire to lean in as close as possible but at the same time allowing them room to breathe. A great example of how restriction added viewing value. It may or may not have also had something to do with the value of the works…

Looking five or ten years ahead, what do you think the art world looks like, and where do you want to be inside it? What needs to change for contemporary art to keep mattering?

For me, as well as bridging regions, I want to bring industries. My major issue with the art world is its isolation from the rest of society. To me this involves finding ways to engage the public further, breaking down some of these walls, while keeping some intact and engaging across industries. I’m currently focusing on real estate. How can we make real estate, which makes up a significant portion of public space, more art focused. Instigating more engagement, more conversation and enriching every day people’s lives. I was, almost spiritually, moved by Brancusi’s sculptures. I would love for more people to experience that.