ANDREW JOVIC - THE INTERVIEW

Andrew Jovic is a Düsseldorf-based art collector and founder of the Andrew Jovic Collection, a private contemporary art collection with a particular interest in emerging and ultra-contemporary artistic positions. The collection developed from roots in Urban Art towards post-2000 painting, installation and a broader range of contemporary practices. Jovic lives in Düsseldorf with his wife, Julia, and many of the works form part of their everyday surroundings. Living with art in this way has also shaped his interest in the relationship between artworks, architecture and lived space. Jovic is also known online by his long-standing alias @cyberkid70.

What has remained consistent is an interest in artists at the point where a visual language is still developing. A recurring aspect of Jovic’s collecting practice has been acquiring works directly from artists and studios at very early stages, sometimes before gallery representation or broader recognition had developed. Rather than treating this as a category in itself, he sees it as part of a wider curiosity about how artistic practices take shape, change and mature over time.

His engagement with Street Art and Urban Art also extended into writing; he is the author of several books on these subjects. For Jovic, writing became another way of engaging with a field he had been following closely for years. Over time, however, the collection evolved into a broader engagement with contemporary art, while retaining the instinctive and direct approach that characterised its beginnings.

The Andrew Jovic Collection is built work by work rather than around a fixed theme. Jovic approaches collecting through a curatorial lens, paying attention not only to individual works but also to the relationships that emerge between them, the architecture in which they are experienced and the way meanings shift over time. Direct dialogue with artists, studio visits and long-term observation of developing practices remain central to this approach.

In 2026, the Andrew Jovic Collection was included by NZZ Feuilleton in a feature on six selected private collections. Jovic was also interviewed in the NZZ Art Basel Special Supplement 2026 about the development of the collection, his selection criteria and his interest in emerging artistic practices and new visual languages.

In this conversation, we explore the origins of his collecting journey, the evolution of the collection, the importance of recognising artistic potential before a broader consensus forms, the role of digital discovery and the curatorial logic that connects works across different generations and media.

Andrew Jovic and Julia Brenner-Jovic, Düsseldorf

SR Andrew, thank you for taking the time to speak with The New Collectors. Your collection has developed considerably over the years, moving from its roots in Urban Art towards a broader engagement with contemporary painting, installation and emerging artistic practices. I would like to begin by looking at that journey and the ideas that continue to shape the way you collect.

AJ What attracted me initially was its directness. Urban Art did not need much mediation before it reached you. It could be intelligent, political, humorous or confrontational, but there was an immediacy to it that I responded to.

Banksy and Invader were particularly important in the beginning. They made me look at images differently and made me curious about how an artist can develop a very specific visual language that becomes recognisable without becoming predictable.

That interest also led me to write several books on Street Art and Urban Art. At the time, writing was another way of engaging with a field that was changing very quickly and of trying to understand the culture around the work, not only the objects themselves.

What stayed with me most was probably less the category of Urban Art itself than the instinct it encouraged. I learned to trust my own response to a work before I had external confirmation that I was supposed to find it important.

The collection has moved considerably beyond Urban Art since then, but that instinct is still very much part of how I look.

SR Today, your collection extends towards younger artists and artistic practices that are still evolving. What do you look for in an artist when you encounter their work at an early stage of their career?

AJ I am not looking for perfection. In fact, a practice that is still developing can sometimes be more interesting to me because you can see the artist thinking, testing and taking risks.

I look for a certain necessity in the work — the feeling that someone is developing a language because they genuinely need to, rather than because it fits comfortably into something already happening around them. Then I want to understand whether there is enough depth for that language to continue developing.

Studio visits and direct conversations have always been important to me for that reason. They allow you to see beyond one successful image. You begin to understand what an artist rejects, what they return to and how they think.

Looking back, engaging very early has become a recurring pattern in the collection. I acquired a work by Mike Lee in 2016, works by Oli Epp directly from the artist in 2017, and a work by Robert Nava in 2018. I also acquired works directly from Vojtech Kovarik and STIK at very early stages in their careers. Neither was represented by a gallery at the time. STIK’s Baby, a canvas from 2015, entered the collection directly from the studio.

I do not mention these examples because being early is a competition. What interests me is that, in retrospect, they reveal something consistent about the way I collect. I have often been drawn to the point where you can sense that something is developing before a wider consensus has formed around it.

Spencer Russell Lewis — #7, 2019

SR Your collection brings together very different artistic positions. What, in your view, connects the works you choose to acquire?

AJ Instinct usually comes first, but over time I have realised that there is a clear thread running through the collection.

I am interested in works that have their own internal logic and that retain some degree of tension or ambiguity. I tend to lose interest when everything is resolved immediately. I like a work to leave something open.

At the same time, I do not want every acquisition to confirm the same idea. The collection is not organised around one theme or one style. What interests me is what happens when very different works are placed in proximity and begin to affect the way you read one another.

That is where the curatorial aspect of collecting becomes important to me. Once a work enters the collection, I stop seeing it completely in isolation. It starts to relate to other works, to the room, to the light, and simply to the experience of living with it.

Larry’s List has also repeatedly featured works from the Andrew Jovic Collection on Instagram, showing how they are installed and lived with in a private setting. I find that interesting because a collection only really begins to reveal itself over time, through the relationships that develop between works, space and everyday life.

I see the collection as a dynamic structure. A new work can change the meaning of something I have lived with for years. Ideally, a collection should not simply illustrate your taste. It should also occasionally contradict it and open up readings you had not anticipated.

SR Is there a work in your collection to which you feel particularly connected? Could you tell us the story behind its acquisition and what it means to you today?

AJ There are several, and the answer probably changes over time. One work I still feel particularly connected to is STIK’s Baby, a canvas from 2015 that I acquired directly from the studio.

It was a very direct acquisition. I responded to the work and to the clarity of its visual language, and that was really enough.

STIK can reduce a figure to very few elements and still create presence, emotion and a remarkably human quality. That economy interested me then and still does.

The work also reminds me of a period when many decisions were made through direct contact with artists and studios, without much distance between discovering something and deciding that I wanted to live with it. I still value that immediacy.

SR Digital platforms and Instagram have become important ways of discovering and sharing artists today. How have they influenced the way you collect and connect with new artistic practices?

AJ I do not really see the digital space as separate from the art world anymore. It is simply one of the places where attention begins.

Instagram has allowed me to encounter artists long before I might have seen them at a fair or in an established gallery programme. More importantly, it allows you to follow a practice over time. You can see what changes, what persists and whether an artist continues to develop.

Some of the most interesting relationships I have had with artists began with a simple digital exchange and developed naturally from there.

But the screen is only a first encounter. Scale, material, surface and physical presence can completely change a work. Whenever possible, I still want to see the work itself, visit studios and understand how the work exists in space.

I also use Instagram to share work that interests me. For me, collecting has never been only about acquiring. Attention, conversation and sustained engagement can also be forms of support.

Robert Nava — Untitled, 2018

SR You seem particularly interested in the moment when a new artistic language begins to take shape. What allows you to recognise when an artist is genuinely developing something original, beyond the temporary trends of the market?

AJ There is no formula, which is probably why it remains interesting.

I tend to look for necessity rather than novelty. Something can look new without really having much behind it. What interests me is when an artist seems to have found a way of thinking visually that feels genuinely their own and has the potential to keep developing without simply repeating itself.

Originality can also be slightly uncomfortable at first. Sometimes the work that stays with you is the work you cannot immediately place. You do not yet have a convenient category for it, but you keep thinking about it.

Time helps. One strong image can be seductive, particularly now when images circulate so quickly. I want to see what happens across several works. Does the artist deepen the language? Can it move somewhere unexpected? Is there a real thought process behind it?

Of course intuition plays a role. Some of my early acquisitions were made before there was much external validation around the artists. Looking back, several of those artists later received much broader recognition, but that is hindsight. At the moment of acquisition, you do not know what will happen.

That uncertainty matters to me. I am not interested in collecting as confirmation. The part I find most compelling is recognising conviction in a work before a broader consensus has formed around it.

SR Looking at today’s contemporary art scene, which artists or artistic practices are exciting you the most? Are there any artists you believe collectors should be paying greater attention to?

AJ I am always looking, but I am deliberately cautious about naming very young artists too early. I do not really see my role as producing a list of names that other collectors should follow.

A significant part of my attention is currently directed towards younger practices in Düsseldorf, including artists connected to the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. I spend time looking at degree shows, studio situations and practices that are still developing, often before there is much of a market structure around them.

Instagram is another important part of that process. I use it less as a place to follow what is already established and more as a way of discovering artists, tracing connections and noticing work that I might otherwise not encounter.

When I become interested in someone at an early stage, I often prefer to follow the practice quietly for a while. Young artists need room to develop without being defined too quickly by collectors, galleries or market expectations.

If I support a practice through an acquisition, that does not necessarily mean I want to publicly frame where that artist should be heading. Sometimes support also means allowing the work to develop without immediately turning attention into a label.

For me, the interesting period is precisely the one before everything becomes fixed — when the artist is still testing a language and you can watch it develop on its own terms.

SR Your collection appears to be an evolving process, shaped through your relationship with artists, artworks and the spaces in which they are experienced. How do you imagine your collection developing over the coming years, and what would you still like to discover?

AJ I do not think about the future of the collection primarily in terms of size. I am much more interested in depth.

I would like to continue following artists over longer periods and to remain open to younger positions when there is something in the work that genuinely challenges the existing collection.

I am also increasingly interested in the relationship between painting, installation and architecture. Living with art changes the way you understand it. A work behaves differently over months and years than it does during the few minutes you might spend with it at a fair.

The curatorial thread of the collection will probably continue to develop in that direction: not towards uniformity, but towards stronger relationships between works, spaces and different generations of artists.

I hope the collection remains flexible enough to surprise me. I do not want to reach a point where every acquisition can be predicted from what is already there.

Ultimately, what keeps me collecting is the possibility of encountering something before I fully understand it. I want to remain close to those moments when a visual language is beginning to take shape. That, for me, is still the most exciting part.

Vojtech Kovarik — Aftermath, 2019