Today we’d like to introduce you to Tam Gryn.
Tam, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. When I graduated high school at 17 years old, the dictatorship was already established and I knew my future was not there. I decided to emigrate with a plan to learn as much as I could from different languages, cultures, countries and career options. Since then, I have lived and worked in Paris, Florence, Tel Aviv, Boston, New York, and now Miami. I have a Deug from La Sorbonne University on Art History and Literature, a BA in Political Science from The Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and an MA in Negotiation from Tel Aviv University.
I’ve had all kinds of different jobs in my journey including bartending, art gallery assistant at Espace Meyer Zafra Paris, the personal assistant of fashion designer Oscar Carvallo, financial journalist for Brightwire, Head of the Curatorial Department for the Artist Pension Trust, Independent Art Curator and Head Curator at RAW POP UP, amongst others. I am currently the Head of SHOW at SHOWFIELDS.
My intense love for all things culture was cultivated at home. My mother and grandmother were huge supporters of the arts. I grew up dancing classical ballet and spending all my weekends at art galleries, the philharmonic orchestra and the opera. Art was a magical escape in the middle of a decaying society. Dancing for the Caracas Metropolitan Ballet exposed me to all tiers of Venezuelan society. While holding the barre, we were all equal.
Culture, for me was the element of my life that paradoxically both elevated me from reality and also connected me to it. This is one of the most important aspects of my work.
Has it been a smooth road?
I don’t think there is such a thing as a smooth road, neither I think that it is my goal. It is important to acknowledge though that some people have it easier than others in many ways and I do consider myself very fortunate. Outcomes depend on the level of one’s awareness and our ability to respond to challenges. Growing up in a conflictive home, I learned the value of standing up for myself. Being raised in a dictatorship taught me the value of freedom. Being an immigrant for the past 16 years teaches me how to navigate foreign systems and the strength in diversity.
A few years ago, I had an accident that paralyzed me for a year, that experience taught me how to slow down (a concept which I struggle with to this day). That experience also led me to understand the value of trust and relying on the people around me. A funny outcome is that I proposed to my now-husband because I was so grateful for his care during this time.
The challenge of motherhood teaches me every day the power of transformation, empathy, gratefulness, patience amongst millions of other things. I once had to legally defend my status as a pregnant woman in court in a labor dispute, a disgraceful experience. As a working and traveling parent, balance is a constant struggle.
Career-wise, it is important for me to reinvent myself at every turn in order to have the skills and tools to keep growing and overcoming more professional challenges. These days I am grateful for meditation and my family to help me handle whatever life has in store.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
I am currently the Head of SHOW at SHOWFIELDS. SHOWFIELDS is the most interesting store in the world. Our flagship location is in New York City at 11 Bond Street and it is a retail stage built to engage and inspire discovery through revolving experiences with the brands, artists and communities of tomorrow. I am currently involved in opening our second location in my hometown, Miami.
SHOWFIELDS was born because nowadays there are more artists, brands, products, and innovation than ever before in history. Yet, when you go to the main street of any city, they look all the same because only the same few brands can afford to open a physical space. On the other hand, when you go online or to your Instagram, there is an incredible amount of discovery happening. So much creativity, art, beautiful brands and products with spectacular photography and videos and we think to ourselves, where can I touch, smell, taste these amazing creations in the physical world?
SHOWFIELDS is a stage for all of those emerging brands and artists, and that is what drives me every day to work and bridge the digital and physical worlds.
SHOWFIELDS is a combination of SHOW (art + experience) and FIELDS (brands). I work with artists to commission art installations in a retail setting. I love that I get to work with a company that is completely disrupting the retail industry and to has the creative freedom to showcase art that is just as disruptive.
Since before SHOWFIELDS, my practice has been about curating art that people can use their 16 human senses to experience and that transcend beyond the visual sense.
Back in the day, paintings were the only connection that humans had to beautiful images. Nowadays, we have access to all the images in the world through our phones and computers, so for people to go out in the world they need real connections, they need a physical experience. I want to curate democratic art experiences that anyone can inherently connect to, that is why I love working with artists in a retail setting and not in a formal art setting. SHOWFIELDS is a welcoming experience that is approachable, yet elevating.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
When I moved to Miami from NYC, I gained a lot of perspectives. Mainly because of nature, the slower rhythm and the architecture. I felt like I finally had the space to observe things from a distance instead of observing from a close range. In NYC, much of the art world is to close to each other and it can feel saturated and competing. That is why many artists there research socio-political topics.
In Miami, most artists research the environment and architecture. Because Miami is a younger city, I also feel a sense of open-mindedness as well as grateful naivete when it comes to culture. Art categories here are less defined, which leaves room for one of my favorite things: interdisciplinary practices.
In terms of improvement, I would suggest a higher level of professionalism, timeliness, more long term thought and strategy — less glorifying of the new, the private, and the luxurious. There is a growing movement of valuing the preserved, the public and the realness.
Contact Info:
- Address: 11 bond st
- Website: showfields.com
- Email: art@showfields.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/showfields
- Facebook: facebook.com/showfields
Image Credit:
SHOWFIELDS
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