AAZ Art Advisory partners:
Amar A. Zahr (left) and Nathalie Ackawi (right)
When Nathalie Ackawi and Amar A. Zahr first founded Beirut Art Residency, their mission centered on an artist-first philosophy, placing the creative process at the heart of community engagement. With the launch of AAZ Art Advisory, they’ve carried that same ethos to the other side of the canvas, helping collectors connect with art through meaning, dialogue, and discovery – but not at the expense of strategy and sensibility.
ult.society sat down with the duo to discuss how their curatorial roots shape their advisory work, the shifts they’ve seen in the market, and the foundations of thoughtful collecting.
(Left) Artwork Placement: Mia Chaplin (Right) Artwork Placement: Pippa El Kadhi Brown
AAZ Art Advisory was born out of your experience running the Beirut Art Residency, a space you both co-founded for artistic experimentation and exchange. Do you see AAZ Art Advisory as an extension of the same curatorial and educational mission that drove the residency program, or as a different kind of platform altogether? If so, how?
Beirut Art Residency was founded on an “artist-first” philosophy. We created a space and program that placed artists at the center, welcoming over 200 participants from around the world to develop and share their work in Beirut. Through our engagement with their creative processes, we began organically encouraging others to discover and collect their work. In that same spirit, AAZ Art Advisory was born. While the platform has evolved, our mission remains unchanged: artist-first.
You come from a deeply curatorial, artist-centric place and perspective. How does this background differentiate or even challenge your art advisory services? How do you believe the role of art advisors has evolved over the past decade?
We believe that’s what truly sets us apart. The art advisory world has expanded rapidly in recent years, but our curatorial and artist-centric background keeps us grounded in the creative process. When advising collectors, we don’t just think about acquisitions – we think about meaning, dialogue, and connection. We encourage collectors to build collections that tell a story, much like curating an exhibition within their own space.
Many advisors focus purely on market value or investment, but your work seems more rooted in knowledge and context. How do you reconcile between personal intuition, artistic appreciation, evidence-based decisions, and market momentum?
Absolutely. We never recommend a work simply because “it’s a good investment”. For us, it’s about the artist’s trajectory: where they started, where they’re heading, and the integrity of their practice. That’s why we make a point of meeting the artists we recommend whenever possible; understanding their process and vision is essential. All that aside, it always comes down to one question: does the collector truly love the work? They will be the ones living with it, not us.
(Left) Artwork Placement: Nadia Ayari (Right) Artwork Placement: Jess Allen
What are the biggest shifts you’ve observed in collector behavior over the past few years? Are collectors more open to risk, or more conservative in taste and how do you introduce them to challenging or less commercial work without losing their interest?
Many of our collectors have grown alongside us since we began advising in 2018. The market has evolved and so have we. There’s been a long return to the painterly: a renewed appreciation for beauty, photorealism, and landscapes that was somehow rejected 10 years ago. As a result, the appetite for more conceptual work has softened, and collectors are taking fewer risks in that regard.
How would you segment the different collector profiles in today’s art market? How have these profiles changed over the years in terms of risk appetite, artistic acumen, and investment approach?
The art market today is more diverse than ever, shaped by a new generation of ‘young’ collectors — young not necessarily in age, but in their collecting journey. Many of them were introduced to art through digital channels rather than the traditional gallery circuit. The way we communicate has completely shifted too; almost all of our interactions with clients now happen over email or WhatsApp, and it’s not unusual for major acquisitions to happen sight unseen.
What’s exciting about this new wave is the openness; collectors are curious and more global in their outlook. There’s a real appetite for discovering emerging voices and engaging with new perspectives.
Under the broader umbrella of art advisory, do you see yourselves more as mediators, educators, or matchmakers between collectors and artists? Do you see yourself changing hats between these roles? If so, when, and how?
Yes, our role often shifts fluidly between all these definitions. At the heart of it, our work is guided foremost by the artists we believe in, and we aim to help collectors connect with those practices through our curatorial lens.
(Left) Artwork Placement: Tursic & Wilfried Mille, artistic duo paired side by side with a ‘Dust Particle’ by Olafur Eliasson. (Right) Artwork Placement: Alya Hatta.
What does a “thoughtful collection” look like to you? And how do you help clients build one?
A thoughtful collection embodies the right balance between passion and strategy: making conscious, well-guided acquisitions while also letting yourself be guided by instinct and emotion. We help clients by giving every collection the attention it deserves, ensuring that each work is acquired with intention and reflects both personal resonance and long-term vision. Every collection has its own narrative, and our role is to help articulate and shape that story over time.
If you could give one piece of advice to a new collector, what would it be?
Work with an art advisor! Not just to navigate the market, but to develop your own eye. A trusted advisor can help you make confident, informed decisions, whether your goals are modest or ambitious.