Meet Jerry Guo, Chuman Zhang | Artist collective co-founders

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jerry Guo, Chuman Zhang and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jerry Guo, Chuman Zhang, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
Honestly, the biggest factor has been community. With Uncommissioned and Novo Collective, nothing happens in a vacuum—it’s always about the artists, curators, and collaborators who trust the vision enough to take risks with us. We’re not trying to replicate the traditional art world model; we’re building something more fluid, more responsive to the city and to people’s lived realities. That sense of shared ownership and experimentation is what makes the projects resonate, and I think that’s why they’ve been able to grow so quickly. It’s less about a ‘brand strategy’ and more about creating spaces where people feel part of something bigger than themselves.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
We’re trying to reimagine how art enters public space and how communities encounter it outside the walls of galleries or institutions. What sets us apart is that we treat the city itself as the exhibition space, and we invite artists to intervene in those overlooked, invisible places that normally don’t get to be part of the art conversation.

I’m most proud of how quickly the projects have built momentum, and that’s not because it’s been easy. There’s no real blueprint for what we’re doing, so it’s a lot of trial, error, and learning on the fly—convincing people to take part in something that doesn’t look like a traditional fair or biennial, figuring out logistics across different cities, and constantly proving that the model works.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that people respond when you create something authentic that they can feel part of. If you try to mimic the established system, you get stuck in its limitations. But when you lean into experimentation and community trust, doors open.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
What excites me most right now is that uncommissioned isn’t tied to one place—it’s happening across 35 cities around the world, all at the same time. That means on day one, artists in Paris, Mexico City, Berlin, New York, and dozens of other cities are installing their works simultaneously, creating this global choreography of interventions. It’s not just one exhibition, it’s a network of exhibitions that exist in dialogue with each other.

What sets it apart is that no matter where you are, you might stumble across a work in your own city, but you’re also connected to this much bigger conversation happening across continents. It creates a sense of belonging to a global community without needing to fly to one central event. That scale—and the fact that it’s driven by artists embedding work directly into public space—is something I’m really proud of.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d definitely have to shout out the artists and collaborators around Novo Collective and uncommissioned. None of this works without people who are willing to experiment with us, sometimes in unpredictable or even uncomfortable contexts. Also, the curators and friends who’ve believed in the vision early on—they’re the ones who helped shape it into more than just an idea. In particular:

Assistant producer: Rania Daghmoura

Website full stack development: Celina Gutierrez, Maksym Nezhoda, Samuel Park, Mina Yaqoob

Graphic & motion design: Sujin Park, Shiyu Angel Shen

Video editing: Yao Xiongyuan, Liu Yuhan, Mike Daitch

Artist Liaison Team
Andrea Mondragón, Samuel Park, Zaida Ruby Lagunas, Stephanie Brown

Website: https://www.uncommissioned.art

Instagram: https://novo.coll