With WOAH, Michi Jigarjian & Isolde Brielmaier Aim to Redefine How Art Meets World

Entering the airy Soho loft that houses the WOAH offices, I see two women sitting next to each other, and, even at a distance, even before meeting them, you can tell they are perfectly in sync. There’s Michi Jigarjian, in a black blazer over a black top with assorted gold jewelry, and there’s Isolde Brielmaier, sporting a black blazer over a white tank and gold earrings. They later admit that they have a habit of showing up in similar outfits without having planned on it, finishing each other’s sentences as they explain as much. The two art world veterans are clearly in their element sitting on a couch side by side under an enormous photograph by Carrie Mae Weems. The work from Weems’s 2006 “Roaming” series captures the artist in a stylish mirror-tiled interior somewhere in Rome, cutting a sharp silhouette against the flashy backdrop. Look past the aesthetic splendor, and there’s a formidable sense of focus and resolve in the image. It’s a similar energy that Jigarjian and Brielmaier channel as they join forces to launch WOAH, a multifaceted new arts and culture advisory firm.

WOAH, short for Work of Art Holdings, aims to cast a rather wider net than your run-of-the-mill art consultancy. “It’s us thinking about art at the intersection of almost everything,” says Jigarjian, from the culinary world to sports and beyond. The biz will celebrate its formal public debut at this year’s Art Basel Miami at The Edition, where it will also kick off a WOAH initiative called Artist’s Table, essentially a dinner series that pairs artists with chefs. First up will be the artist José Parlá, with the occasion coinciding with his show at Pérez Art Museum, and chef Eileen Andrade of Miami Asian fusion spot Finka Table & Tap. Then there’s WOAH’s Art Arena platform, the premise of which is to bring together female artists and female athletes for any number and type of collaboration. Mickalene Thomas and sports agent Lindsay Kagawa Colas will both advise on their area of expertise. “It’s looking at the synergies between the two,” Brielmaier explains. “Athletes perform for an audience in an arena; artists create work for an audience in a gallery space in a museum.” She further notes that “both have had very similar journeys in their respective fields” when it comes to the progress women have made in either industry. The concept also nods to yet more common ground between Jigarjian and Brielmaier: their beginnings as athletes, with Brielmaier having trained as a dancer starting from age 6, and Jigarjian a Division I college soccer player.

An array of involved initiatives is only possible thanks to the pair’s some near four decades of art world experience combined. Brielmaier has put in time at some of its most esteemed institutions: She began her career at the Guggenheim before returning to school, ultimately earning her PhD in art history from Columbia, and now teaches critical studies at NYU. Prior to launching WOAH, Brielmaier was a director at the New Museum, where she was integral to pushing forth the institution’s 60,000-square-foot expansion.

Meanwhile, Jigarjian started off working a corporate job at Disney in the consumer products sector. After some time, she, too, returned to school to get her MFA at Bard. There, with the purchase of a work by one of her professors, Nayland Blake, Jigarjian began an art collection that has since grown to around 225 pieces mostly from living artists, including Ai Weiwei and Hank Willis Thomas, and that is now at the disposal of WOAH and its many ongoing curatorial endeavors. While completing her degree, she landed an internship at Baxter Street Camera Club. The year after she graduated, she was named president of the organization. It was at Baxter Street CC, in 2014, that their paths first crossed, when Jigarjian brought Brielmaier on to a newly formed advisory board. From the get-go, they were “fans of each other,” says Jigarjian. Now, 10 years on, “We’ve been colleagues, we’ve been friends. We’re moms. We are women trying to bust moves and not bust open!” Brielmaier says, as Jigarjian laughs knowingly.

Since the pandemic, Jigarjian has separately risen to prominence as a founding partner of The Rockaway Hotel, which opened its doors the summer of 2020. Overnight, the beachside hotel became a hotspot. A widely praised contemporary art program, which sees new pieces rotated every six months, seemed to do the trick in luring creative crowds from across the boroughs to the outskirts of Queens. (WOAH also plans to replicate this model for The Edition.)

But, from the outset, Jigarjian made a point of involving the Rockaway’s residents in the hotel’s arts-centered activities, a mission that Brielmaier is naturally on board with as she becomes involved in its future programming as part of WOAH. For two murals by Julia Chiang commissioned by the hotel in 2022, the artist based the imagery on drawings contributed by locals. A 2023 mural, by Jesse Grimes, was completed in collaboration with kids from the foster organization St. John’s Residency for Boys.“We were centering art, and art was sort of that first step out into the community that gave us that bedrock of trust to do the rest of the programming and to be that good neighbor that we are today,” says Jigarjian.

It’s that emphasis on community, wherever it may materialize, that runs through all of their shared endeavors. “It’s place-making,” Brielmaier summarizes, addressing how the simple presence of art can almost spontaneously turn its whereabouts into a destination. “One of the things where Michi and I have come together on in an unspoken way is the way in which you can take art out of the art world and also build community around it,” she continues. “It’s this idea that art can be a catalyst, to build community, to bring people together, to push down boundaries, or perceived boundaries, and also to spark conversations, whether they're delightful and comfortable or sometimes even uncomfortable. But it's a way of bringing people together.”

Of course, the relationship is reciprocal. As Brielmaier adds: “Art necessitates an audience. Artists don't create work and shove it in the back of a closet. They want to put it out in the world.”

Hair for Michi Jijarjian by Korey Fitzpatrick; Makeup for Jigarjian by Elena Miglino; Hair for Isolde Brielmaier by John Ruidant; Makeup for Brielmaier by Carissa Swany; Stylist Assistant: Maia Wilson.