As the agent to have represented and nurtured the careers of artists such as Nan Goldin, M/M (Paris), Inez & Vinoodh, Penny Martin and Stephen Galloway, Jae Choi is widely recognized as one of the fashion and creative industries' most visionary forces.
Born in South Korea and brought up in New York, Jae started out in advertising, progressing to agenting when she began as an assistant at Art + Commerce in
1996. Granted her own division in 2001, she took over the representation of the legendary Dutch fashion photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin and so, a longstanding creative partnership of decades was born.
Notable projects they created together include the campaign imagery for Balenciaga during Nicolas Ghesquière's tenure at the brand and for Givenchy during Ricardo Tisci's, as well as numerous cultural projects - from fashion shows for Viktor & Rolf, catalogues for Yohii Yamamoto and music videos for Björk, and Lady Gaga, to exhibitions and publications for art galleries and international museums.
Building on her success in developing the art projects of her commercial artists and the commercial careers of the artists in her division - including David
Armstrong - in 2008 Jae left Art + Commerce to found a new kind of agency: theCollectiveShift. Anticipating an interdisciplinary era in which artists would be encouraged to work outside their particular fields and to adapt their visual and directorial skills into other disciplines, tCS set up as a collaborator for its artists and as a cultural consultant to its clients. Over the past decade, this personal, strategic approach to artist management has led to unprecedented opportunities - such as for the choreographer Stephen Galloway to direct fashion films and commercials, and for the photographer Tommy Ton to act as a Creative Director for Deveaux. With such insight and resources at its disposal, Jae was passionate that tCS use this expertise to participate in the important political activism occurring in recent years. tCS is proud to have been an official partner of the Women's March 2017, for which tCS's artist Jo Ratcliffe contributed the poster, and a supporter of the Leonard Peltier clemency case and GMC's Distance Yourself From Hate campaign. And since 2018, tCS has also been part of Nan Goldin and P.A.I.N's protest against cultural institutions accepting financial support from the family behind the pharmaceutical company that makes OxyContin.
Jae splits her time between Manhattan and Southampton.