Alain Elkann Interviews: Recent Episodes
Alain Elkann
Alain Elkann Interviews podcasts are an unprecedented window into the minds of some of the most well-known and -respected figures of the last twenty-five years. Alain Elkann has mastered the art of the interview, approaching the task as somewhere between snapping a photograph and writing a short story. With a background in novels and journalism, and having published over twenty books translated across ten languages, Alain infuses his interviews with innovation, allowing them to flow freely and organically. A small selection, to which we will gradually add, are presented here as podcasts for the first time.
PORTRAYING THE DESTRUCTION OF CULTURE. Piers Secunda studied painting at Chelsea College of Art in London. Since the late nineties he has developed a studio practice using paint in a sculptural manner, rejecting the limitations imposed by the canvas. Piers’ work examines some of the most significant subjects of our time, such as the deliberate destruction of culture.
“I make the work so that in the future people can learn from them”
“Sometimes people come into art galleries and see my work and cry”
“The bottom line is a level of awareness”
STANDING FOR CLARITY AND COMPLEXITY. Emily Greenhouse has been the Editor of the prestigious New York Review of Books magazine since 2019. She is the first woman to be sole editor of the magazine, and when she was appointed was the youngest editor in its history.
"What we publish is very accessible and very delightful"
"We are a very jousty magazine."
"It is our job to talk about complex things and allow them to be complex"
A LINEAGE OF THE REAL AND THE AUTHENTIC. Luc Tuymans is a Belgian visual artist, many of whose paintings explore people’s relationship with history and confront their ability to ignore it. World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust is a recurring theme in his many faceted work. Tuymans is a key figure of the generation of European figurative painters who gained renown at a time when many believed the medium had lost its relevance due to the new digital age.
“I want the feeling of doing something special”
“For young artists now, it is very strenuous and very difficult”
“There’s a big difference between a drawn line and a painted line”
CURATING THE VERY DIFFERENT IDENTITIES OF THE PELLICANO HOTELS GROUP. Marie-Louise Sciò is CEO of the Pellicano Hotels group in Italy, which today comprises Hotel Il Pellicano in Porto Ercole in Tuscany, La Posta Vecchia Hotel near Rome, and Mezzatorre Hotel & Thermal Spa in Ischia. The youngest child of hotelier Roberto Sciò, Marie-Louise studied design and architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design in the USA and then worked in interior design beside Massimo Zompa in her native city of Rome before returning to her first love, Hotel Il Pellicano, her father’s establishment in which she grew up.
“I curate the whole aesthetic experience of the hotels”
“We have Il Pellicano lovers, we have Mezzatorre lovers, and we have La Posta Vecchia lovers, but it’s the same very international clientele”
“There’s a magic about it. The region is great, the atmosphere is great”
SINGING WITH THE PIANO. Ludovico Einaudi is an internationally celebrated pianist and composer. Born in Turin, Ludovico is the son of two exceptional people. His mother, the pianist and composer Renata Aldrovandi, was the daughter of the conductor and composer Wando Aldrovandi and had a great influence on his future life. His father Giulio Einaudi was a famous publisher and chairman of the Giulio Einaudi editore book publishing house.
"I went to the North Sea in the Svalbard Islands to make a video and I played in front of a glacier."
"There was a strange sensation, like they were composed by someone from my family, but not me."
"The chance to dive into different cultures always enriches myself and my music."
EDITING A MAGAZINE OF MAGAZINES. Donatien Grau is a philologist who currently serves as Head of Contemporary Programmes at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and is also the co-founder and Editor of a new English language magazine called Alphabet.
“We all have many lives, and the key to the magazine is that each of those lives includes an artistic element.”
“Thinking is always in danger.”
“Remaining true to myself and the people who have embraced me is a really crucial thing.”
SPEAKING TO THE DEFEATED. Federico Campagna is an Italian philosopher based in London. His research concerns the metaphysics, politics and history of world-building. His books are Technic and Magic (Bloomsbury, 2018) and Prophetic Culture (Bloomsbury, 2021) and his next book Otherworlds, Mediterranean Lessons on Escaping History will investigate the history of cosmological imagination during times of crisis in the Mediterranean area.
“The values of old are gone, and you have to reinvent your way of life from scratch”
“An apocalypse reveals all the things that usually, in your daily life, you tend to not notice immediately.”
“The world is produced outside of us to a minimal extent. It is produced within us to a maximum extent.”
A REMARKABLE BOOKSELLER. James Daunt is the founder of the Daunt Books chain in the UK, and has been managing director of Waterstones, the bookshop chain of more than 300 stores, since 2011. In 2019 he also became CEO of Barnes & Noble, the American bookstore chain of some 650 stores. An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Daunt was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to publishing.
“The real joy of a bookstore is that it does curate and it does the job of ensuring that readers and customers are browsing the best that’s available.“
“The book is ultimately the most satisfying way in which to educate oneself and to illuminate around the issue of interest“
“There are booksellers up and down, particularly in Europe, who are espousing the same principles, which is let the booksellers in each shop run their own bookstores“
A LARGE MUSEUM IS LIKE AN OPERA. Laurence des Cars is a French museum curator and art historian who President Macron appointed President and Director of the Louvre Museum in September 2021, becoming the first woman to hold the position in the establishment’s 228-year history. Her previous role was President of musée d’Orsay and musée de l’Orangerie. Laurence des Cars is the author of several books including ‘The Pre-Raphaelites: Romance and Realism’.
“The Louvre is more than a museum. It’s a symbol of France, of Paris.”
“We are definitely in a very complex moment, and we are looking for places where we can confront ourselves through a perspective of long time in history.”
“I do not think that looking at art should be painful, boring and exhausting. It should be absolutely the contrary to that.”
GOOD GOING. Graydon Carter launched his enjoyable digital weekly newsletter Air Mail in 2019. He was the editor of Vanity Fair for twenty-five years, and under him Vanity Fair won numerous awards. Named to the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame, he is also an author and editor of books, a producer of plays and documentaries, and a restaurateur. In the newly published memoir When the Going Was Good Graydon recounts how he made his mark as one of society’s most talented editors and shapers of culture.
“I’m a very kind person, and I treat everybody the same.”
“Every editor out there was working at the top of their game, and they were really good, so the competition was fierce.”
“Always carry a handkerchief!”
AFRICA: FACING THE FACTS. Guillaume Bonn is a documentary photographer who has commented on conflict, social and environmental issues for the last 25 years. As a contributor to the New York Times and Vanity Fair he covered topics ranging from the conflict in Northern Uganda, the Darfur humanitarian crisis and the ivory trade in African elephants. Bonn grew up in Kenya and his subsequent reporting bought him to 40 countries on the African continent. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, he is the author of a beautiful new book Paradise Inc..
“African governments are struggling, yet they seem to overlook opportunities to improve the lives of their citizens.”
“It’s baffling that African governments continue to follow outdated conservation models imposed when national parks were first established.
“Politicians view wildlife as existing on pristine land that could easily be transformed into big cities, parking lots, casinos, and supermarkets.”
EDUCATING THE CONSUMER ABOUT COFFEE AND TEA. DAVID VEAL has been deeply involved in both the coffee industry and the tea industry for over 40 years. He is the former Executive Director of the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe and is currently Executive Director of The European Speciality Tea Association, a position he took up in May 2019.
“There is a commonality between tea and coffee, and that is education.”
“We’re all about promoting speciality tea and fostering a speciality tea community worldwide.”
“The path that speciality tea is taking is similar to the one that speciality coffee took, but about 20 to 30 years behind.”
• David Veal has over 42 years of experience in the coffee and tea industries, initially working in the coffee sector and later becoming the executive director of the European Speciality Tea Association.
• Coffee originated in Ethiopia and spread to other regions like Indonesia, India, and Brazil. There are two main varieties of commercially grown coffee - robusta and arabica, with arabica being the higher quality.
• The coffee industry has seen a cultural revival in recent decades, with the rise of coffee shop chains like Starbucks making coffee a more sophisticated and social drink.
• Tea has a much longer history, with origins in China thousands of years ago. It is deeply ingrained in the cultures of countries like China, India, and the UK, where it is a popular daily beverage.
• The tea industry faces challenges similar to coffee, with a divide between mass-market, low-quality tea and the speciality, high-quality tea market. Factors like climate change and an ageing workforce are also impacting tea production.
• Proper brewing methods, water quality, and education about the nuances of different teas and coffees are important for consumers to appreciate the full flavour profiles of these beverages.
• Overall, both the coffee and tea industries are evolving, with the speciality and premium segments offering opportunities for growth and appreciation of these complex and culturally significant commodities.
HUMANISE: A DEEPLY PASSIONATE MANIFESTO. Thomas Heatherwick is a British designer whose varied work over two decades is characterised by its originality, inventiveness and humanity. As the founder and design director of Heatherwick Studio, Thomas now heads a team of over 250 problem solvers dedicated to making the physical world around us better for everyone. This team wants to see a world where the buildings and places around us are radically more joyful, engaging and human. The approach driving everything is to lead from human experience rather than any fixed design belief.
"I advocate for servant architecture."
"Working with neuroscientists and researchers, I see that once you get to city scale you go into stress when it's plain, flat, shiny, serious, monotonous and anonymous."
"It's a real challenge as an adult to keep connected to true common sense."
ART ELEVATES YOU EVERY DAY. Cécile Verdier is President of Christie's France. She graduated from Sciences Po and Art History at Paris IV, before spending 4 years at Christie's as Head of Valuations then moving to the 20th Century department, in parallel of taking the hammer for Christie’s France since the inauguration sale in 2001. From 2008 to 2018, she was heading the 20th Century Design Department globally at Sotheby’s and Vice President of the French office at the end of her tenure. In 2019, she came back to Christie’s as President for France.
“An auction house is rightly called a house, not an auction company. We are a home.”
“You can hear English being spoken all over the city. Paris definitely became more international.”
“There are no bad questions. “How much do you think it will cost?” is always a good question to ask.”
RESTORING AND MAINTAINING EYESIGHT. Professor Sheng Lim is an internationally renowned ophthalmologist and consultant at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. He was trained in the UK and also spent one year as the International Glaucoma Association’s postdoctoral fellow at the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota. He was promoted to Professor of Ophthalmology (Glaucoma Studies) at King’s College London in 2020, in recognition of his contribution towards ophthalmology research. He is currently the head of ophthalmology research at St Thomas’, and founder of their KCL Frost Eye Research Department, one of the largest ophthalmology clinical trial units in the UK.
“My ultimate goal, as a professor in glaucoma research, is to find a cure for glaucoma and prevent blindness.”
“Vision is probably one of the most intimate and important sensory organs that a human being has.”
“In the UK and Europe we have more choices, better suited for the patients, than they have in America.”
BEAUTIFULLY TRANSFORMING WALLS AND ROOMS. Idarica Gazzoni Frascara’s hometown is Bologna, Italy. After she studied with Van Der Kelen in his painting school in Brussels, Belgium, and learned the technique of faux bois and marbleizing she became a passionate artist, painting rooms and walls and ceilings in Italy and many other countries. In 2009 she founded Arjumand’s World and opened her first showroom for fabrics and wallpapers in Milano.
“I fell in love with Arjumand because she was quite extraordinary and had all the details I was looking for.”
“All the rules have changed.”
“Being so small I cannot be like Zara Home, unfortunately!”
A CROSS DISCIPLINARY WORLD FOR YOUNG ARTISTS. Jonathan Reekie has been Director of Somerset House Trust in London since 2014. During this time, the renovation of the historic site with its grand Renaissance architecture has been completed, including the launch of Somerset House Studios for artist residencies. Reekie has established Somerset House as a home of cultural innovators and in 2025 Somerset House celebrates its 25th birthday, marking its extraordinary transformation to one of London’s best loved cultural spaces and home to one of the largest creative communities in the UK.
“Thinking about how artists can help us make a better world”
“Bringing artists back into a space in the centre of the city is very crucial if London wants to remain a creative centre.”
“If I can help make a better environment for artists to work, think and thrive then I will always feel very fulfilled.”
WORKING WITH THE BRAIN. Alastair Buchan is a British-Canadian doctor who specialises as a clinical neurologist. His main research interest is how to make neuroprotection a reality in the clinic. He currently holds the Chair of Stroke Research at the University of Oxford. From 2008 until 2017, he served as the Dean of Medicine and the Head of the Medical Sciences Division at the University of Oxford, and then from 2017 on as the university’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Head of Brexit Strategy. Working to maintain Oxford’s continued presence in Europe he brokered partnerships with the Universities and hospitals in Berlin and established the Oxford-Berlin Research Partnership, which includes an “Oxford in Berlin” centre for Oxford University in Berlin.
“We are starting to learn how to work on brain failure, which results in dementia.”
“Light is really toxic to the brain at night, and you do not want to be looking at a computer screen late at night.”
“I would put the Universities in charge of health care.”
CHANGING TASTE AND VALUE. Jussi Pylkkänen is now an independent art advisor. After 38 years of service, his career at Christies culminated in the global presidency of the auction house. Among his many outstanding achievements, in 2017 he was the auctioneer at the sale of the world’s most expensive painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, sold at auction at in New York for $450,312,500, a new record price for any artwork which is likely to stand for many decades.
“Art is the esssence of humanity.”
“As I brought the hammer down on Salvator Mundi I was conscious that that one last bid, at an extra $30 million, was the equivalent of the total price of the Van Gogh Sunflowers, the painting and price that had transformed the art market forever in 1987.”
“I will be back auctioneering alongside my art advisory. The two will go hand in hand.”
PASSIONATE ABOUT HOW PEOPLE RELAX. Andrea Wong has vast experience in the leisure and entertainment industry on both sides of the Atlantic. Wong was President, International Production for Sony Pictures Television and President, International for Sony Pictures Entertainment based in London. Prior to that, she served as President and CEO of Lifetime Cable Networks. She now serves on the boards of Liberty Media Corporation, Roblox, QVC Group, and Hudson Pacific Properties.
“Everyone knows what it feels like to fall in love, to date, to be dumped.”
“Dancing With the Stars was the most visually arresting show I’d ever seen.”
“You have to do what you love. You have to do what makes you want to get up in the morning.”
BETWEEN WORLDS. Priscilla Rattazzi was born in Rome in 1956, attended Atlantic College in Wales, UK, and moved to the United States in the 1970s where she studied photography at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. The themes of her recent London solo exhibition, titled Between Worlds and at Robilant+Voena, offer a reflection of the photographer’s life, with an interlinking chronology, examining human relationships, and relationships between people and their dogs, while suggesting the increasingly profound reassurance of nature as an eternal point of reference, especially in uncertain times.
“I have gone back and forth between worlds, not knowing who I am…”
“I only tend to photograph things I love now, and I do my best work when I get upset.”
“I’m deeply focussed on making sure that I’m a respected artist 20 years from now.”
CREATING A CULTURAL HUB. Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu are the co-founders of Magazzino Italian Art, a museum and research center dedicated to postwar and contemporary Italian art that is located in Cold Spring, New York. Magazzino opened in 2017 at the former manufacturing site of Cyberchron rugged military computer systems. The name Magazzino translates as "warehouse".
“Magazzino made the step that has made Arte Povera better known today.”
“Magazzino will never stop displaying the 13 heroes that we have in the group of Arte Povera, so the original ‘main building’ will always remain a museum dedicated to Arte Povera.”
“The donkeys in Sardinia were on the verge of extinction and were under very strict protection with laws that would not allow their export outside Sardinia.”
BELIEVING IN HOPE WITHOUT COMPROMISE. Dr Virgilio Sacchini is dedicated to caring for people with breast cancer at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He originally trained at Universita degli Studi di Milano (UNIMI, Milan, Italy) where he is Professor of Surgery, and cooperates with the European Institute of Oncology in Milan (IEO, Milan, Italy). Dr Sacchini is a 2023 and 2024 Castle Connolly America’s Top Doctor, the peer nominated group of the top 7% of all US practicing physicians. His goal is to achieve the best possible cancer outcomes and cosmetic results for his patients.
“The new concept is to target only cancer cells.”
“To cure someone and give him or her a miserable life is terrible, so the target in this moment is both better survival and better quality of life, less side effects.”
“Once we prove that the combination of the medication with the Avacta technique works, of course it is approved and you can be cured everywhere in the world.”
BREAKING THE MIRROR. Michelangelo Pistoletto is one of the most celebrated artists in Europe. Born in Biella, Italy, in 1933 and a leading figure of the radical Italian Arte Povera movement, Pistoletto created his first Mirror Paintings in 1961–62. These influential works earned him international acclaim and have become a hallmark of his oeuvre. Robilant+Voena’s recent exhibition in Dover Street, London, presented works by Pistoletto divided across two rooms: the first room showcasing black and white mirror pieces, and the second offering mirror works in bold colours.
"I do not call it black and white because the mirror doesn't have the colour white. I call it light: light mirror."
"You are already in the painting."
"We have to decide if we want peace or war."
James Snyder was Deputy Director of MoMA from 1986 to 1996. He then led the Israel Museum in Jerusalem through 22 years of dramatic growth, securing its stature as one of the world's foremost museums. In 2023 Snyder became Helen Goldsmith Menschel Director of the Jewish Museum in New York, which has been located in the former Warburg Mansion at 1109 5th Ave at 92nd Street since 1947. The Jewish Museum maintains a unique collection of nearly 30,000 works of art and archeology, ceremonial objects, and media reflecting the global Jewish experience over more than 3,500 years......
"We are all foreigners, wherever we are. Even at home, we are foreigners."
"....an important point about the history of the region is to understand how, during the Ottoman Empire, there were not countries but rather cultures...."
"...there does not have to be a disconnect between your core identity and your cultural identity."
COMPLETELY FRESH. Ai Weiwei is a contemporary artist, writer and humanitarian activist. Born in China in 1957, from 1981 to 1993 he lived in the United States. He currently has three exhibitions in New York: Child’s Play is at the Vito Schnabel Gallery at both 455 W 19th Street and 360 W 11th Street, and What You See is What You See is at Faurschou New York, 148 Green Street, Brooklyn. Ai Weiwei’s exhibitions run to late February 2025.
“I don’t belong to anywhere at all or to any group, and I’m still trying to find out what is left, as a human and as an individual.”
“Prison is one kind of human condition.”
“You have to act out what you believe and make some actions, not just to change the world, but it’s really self-teaching to change yourself. I change daily.”
STILL PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES. Sir Norman Rosenthal celebrated his 80th birthday on November 8th 2024. A curator and art historian, he was Exhibitions Officer at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, a curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and for many years Exhibitions Secretary at the Royal Academy in London. Recently he curated Georg Baselitz: The Last Decade at the Sabancı Museum in Istanbul. His Roberto Matta 1911-2002 opened at Ca’ Pesaro, Venice on October 25th 2024, and he is curating David Hockney’s April 2025 exhibition at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris.
"Art is a complex story, and one has to pick out the great artists who have their own vision of the world."
"I always liked to do things with other people."
"I'm very proud to be having a dialogue with David Hockney"
IN MEMORIAM. Joseph Rykwert CBE died on October 18th 2024 at the age of 98. One of the foremost architectural historians and critics of his generation, Rykwert spent most of his working life in the UK and the USA. He was the Paul Philippe Cret Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and taught the history and theory of architecture at several institutions in Europe and North America. His many influential works on architecture include The Idea of a Town (1963), On Adam’s House in Paradise (1972), The Orders of Architecture (1982), The Dancing Column (1996), and The Seduction of Place (2000). All of his books have been translated into several languages.
I visited Joseph often at his house in London’s Hampstead, and on 9th July 2021 he generously agreed for our conversation to be recorded and to take part in what would become this final interview. We publish it here for the first time because it was made to be able to remember and celebrate Joseph’s ‘gloriously erudite’, light-hearted voice at the time of his passing. Sadly, even if he lived to a considerable age, that time is now upon us.
"I don't think there's one outstanding figure in my generation, there are a lot of second rank figures but there was not one figure of the stature of Corbusier."
"Frank Lloyd Wright was a genius. Some of Wright’s buildings are impressive. I met him once, but not as a pupil. He was very antipatico, very exploitative of all the people who came to learn from him."
"I think of myself as superficial and ignorant, because I just haven't read enough."
CONTINUING THE RENAISSANCE. Lorenzo Fiaschi is one of the three friends who founded the very prestigious Galleria Continua art gallery in San Gimignano, the town with a fantastic and famous skyline of medieval towers in Tuscany, Italy.
"We aimed to be in the moment, to continue from the past, and to move toward the future. That's why the name: Galleria Continua."
"My idea was to build bridges to help Cuba — cultural bridges between Cuba and the rest of the world."
"It's about seeing people happy and enjoying the projects we are doing when they say, 'Wow!' — creating emotions."
INDEXING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. Alexandra Mousavizadeh is a Danish economist and CEO of Evident, an intelligence platform that benchmarks and tracks Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption across the financial services sector. Prior to June 2022 Alexandra was a partner at Tortoise Media in London and creator of The Responsibility 100 Index and The Global AI Index. Alexandra specialises in index creation, using data to build benchmarks that rank nations and companies on key social and technological issues.
“We have never seen technology change this quickly.”
“Implementing AI in a business is a difficult task and requires a compete re-think of how the business is organised.”
“The race has never been this intense before.”
AN HOMAGE TO FRIENDSHIP. Thomas Persson is a creative director, editor and brand consultant. His understanding of fashion, culture and corporate identity is a resource for global fashion and beauty companies in their visual communication and brand building projects. He created “Acne Paper” an acclaimed magazine published by Acne Studios. He art directed global advertising campaigns for leading fashion brands including Armani and he made two books on the legendary photographer Snowdon. Today he is once again at the editorial helm of a reborn “Acne Paper”.
“A magazine is a beautiful way to connect with the world.”
“There is something about the book and some magazines that, when they are well done, the Internet and social media can’t really compete with it, because it’s an object.”
“There’s always one favourite image that sings to me, so it’s not a difficult choice, it stands out.”
CELEBRATING INDIVIDUAL SELF-EXPRESSION. Erdem Moralıoglu is a British fashion designer and the eponymous founder of London-based fashion label Erdem, which he established in 2005. His Spring Summer 2025 collection was shown at the British Museum’s South Entrance amidst its 45 feet high columns. The show was based on The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, published in 1928 and banned in the same year. The book gives voice and form to the love of two women at a time when the idea of gay love between two women was not even illegal, its very existence was denied as impossible. For Spring Summer 2025 Erdem pays homage to this story of the love of Stephen Gordon, a woman living as a man, and her relationship with Mary Llewellyn.
"I wonder if Radclyffe today would be considered non-binary or trans."
"When you see someone wearing something that you've designed that might be almost 20 years old, but it's absorbed into their life and they wear it in their own way, I find that really wonderful!"
"You can't help but look backwards when you're about to turn 20, but it also feels like the beginning."
EXPLORING HYBRIDITY. Dr Amin Jaffer is Director of The Al Thani Collection. He is responsible for working with the Centre des Monuments Nationaux and a global team in the creation of a museum space for The Al Thani Collection at the Hôtel de la Marine, Paris. He is also Artistic Director of the 2025 edition of the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah. For 10 years he was International Director of Asian Art at Christie’s. At London’s Victoria and Albert Museum he was External Exhibition Curator responsible for the exhibition Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts.
"When I went to meet the maharajas I was fascinated by their hybrid existence."
"When we do an exhibition at The Al Thani Collection we don't just show beautiful things. There has always to be a very strong premise behind it and a real purpose."
"When the French public came to see the Renaissance show, their response was that they had no idea The Al Thani Collection is so rich in the Renaissance."
A MISSION TO MAKE PEOPLE LAUGH. Gad Elmaleh is a stand-up comedian. Born in Morocco, after attending French schools in Casablanca he went to Montreal for 4 years. He was a political science student for a year, worked on radio, wrote humorous stories and played them in night clubs. In 1992 he took The Cours Florent theatre course in Paris. Through his one-man shows Décalages and La Vie Normale Gad was revealed as a humorist, and he is an actor who starred in various movies. Gad has two sons: Noé with actress Anne Brochet, and Raphael with Charlotte Casiraghi.
"I love doing movies, but there is nothing I found in my life that can equal and get to the same level of intensity, excitement, adrenaline as the madness of the live performance."
"We experienced such a peaceful relation and fraternity in Morocco with Jews and Muslims. This is quite unique in an Arab country."
"Making people laugh is a great thing, but also is a therapy for a lot of people."
WRITING NEW CHAPTERS. Kamel Mennour is an Algerian-born French art dealer. In 1999 he founded Galerie Kamel Mennour in Paris. Today Mennour is a contemporary art gallery representing over forty artists with four exhibition locations in Paris.
“I was part of the art scene which was offering a very stimulating position for Paris as a big place on the world map for art.”
“The work has to have something very particular that I can become obsessed with.”
“We are growing a trinity between the artist with his artworks, the gallery, and the collector.”
PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES. Maria Balshaw is Director of Tate since June 2017. The author of Gathering of Strangers: Why Museums Matter, published by Tate Publishing in June 2024, previously Maria was Director of the Whitworth, University of Manchester; Director of Manchester City Galleries; and Director of Culture for Manchester City Council. She is the first female director of the Tate, with overall responsibility for Tate’s strategic direction and day-to-day operations, and each of the four Tate galleries has their own site Director who reports in to her.
“We’re reshaping what people think about when they describe the art world”
“People come because they want to learn something, and they enjoy doing it because at best our museums are non-didactic learning spaces.”
“When people are given the opportunity to bring their own ideas or participate actively, it makes them feel like the gallery is their own.”
REINTERPRETING HERITAGE IN THE NEW WORLD. Leonardo Ferragamo, the fifth son of Salvatore and Wanda Ferragamo, is the Chairman of Salvatore Ferragamo S.p.A. since 2021. He studied economics at the University of Lausanne (UNIL), then at Columbia University. He started working for Ferragamo in menswear, and created Ferragamo Men Division. Today, he is also President of the Lungarno Collection of hotels in Florence, Rome and Milan, and CEO of Palazzo Feroni Finanziaria, one of the Ferragamo family’s two holding companies, which operates in real estate and other diversified businesses. Leonardo Ferragamo is also President of Sawa SRL, which has to do with his personal love of sailing boats and in particular the Nautor Swan yachts, to ensure whose future on August 1st 2024 he sold to Sanlorenzo, a worldwide leader in the production of made-to-measure yachts.
“Heritage is one side of a river from which to build the bridge into the future.”
“I want to make sure that the long-term future of a company and a brand like Swan, loved by so many people around the world, has a route over perennity, supported by a very credible group so as to launch it in the long-term future.”
“You have to know what you’re going towards, what can happen to you, and you have to be aware of the unexpected things that can happen, and when they happen be prepared how to face them and not be scared because they are happening.”
A RESTAURATEUR ON THE FLOOR. Jeremy King is a well-known London restaurateur. He created some of London’s most iconic restaurants with his former business partner Chris Corbin, including The Ivy, Le Caprice and The Wolseley. In 2024 Jeremy King reincarnated Le Caprice as Arlington to great acclaim, and his latest venture is the all-day restaurant The Park.
“I love clarity in a restaurant, which I feel with The Park that we have.”
“I work on the basis that the food should never be deemed expensive.”
“I realised it is impossible for me to see every customer when they come in, but I can see every member of staff every day, and they see every customer.”
AN ARCHITECTURE OF OPTIMISM. Amanda Levete CBE is a Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Stirling Prize winning architect and founder and principal of AL_A, an international award-winning architecture studio in London. Since its formation in 2009, AL_A has refined an intuitive and strategic approach to design and urban thinking.
“There’s only one thing in life that you cannot design, and that is heritage.”
“We are using architecture to message the technological optimism of fusion.”
“A historic context has this built-in resistance that forces you to think in a certain way.”
A FIGHTER FOR EGALITARIANISM AND JUSTICE. Judy Chicago is an artist, author, feminist, cultural historian, and educator who lives and works in New Mexico, USA. In 2018 she was named one of Time Magazine’s most influential people, and she has garnered an enduring stature. Born Judy Cohen in 1939, and known briefly after her first marriage as Judy Gerowitz, Chicago attended the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1970, she adopted the surname ‘Chicago’ and initiated the United States’ first Feminist Art Programme at California State University, Fresno. Chicago became particularly well known for her 1970s installation The Dinner Party. In 2024 her show Revelations is at London’s Serpentine and Herstory is at LUMA Arles.
“Feminist art promotes diversity. I believe that every voice counts.”
“I look at the history of art as the history of men’s art, and so feminist art opens the way for a history of women’s art.”
“I don’t think people quite understand how much work it is for an artist to have three shows within one year.”
CLASSIC WITH A MODERN TWIST. Charles Zana is a highly sensitive architect who imagines each project through the lens of a French lifestyle. He is also a passionate collector like his father, and has done in-depth research on the great Italian design masters of the 20th century such as Ettore Sottsass and Carlo Scarpa. In 2019 Charles Zana was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by David Caméo, director of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
“I like to always start from a classic design, and then to treat it in a modern way.”
“People don’t accept the simple beautiful project; they want to understand what is behind it.”
“I became a good architect and then I became fashionable.”
THE PROMISED PARTY. Jennifer Clement is the President Emerita of PEN International and the author of multiple books, including Widow Basquiat and Gun Love. The recipient of many awards, her books have twice been a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Under her leadership at PEN International, and being the only woman elected since the organization was founded in 1921, the groundbreaking PEN International Women’s Manifesto and The Democracy of the Imagination Manifesto were created. As President of PEN Mexico (2009-2012), Clement was instrumental in changing the law to make killing a journalist a federal crime.
“The book is fragmentary in the sense that it is written in very short chapters. It is also the story of how I became a writer and a tale of two cities.“
“I felt it was very important that PEN International, the largest and oldest writers’ organisation, defend the right for writers to use their imaginations and be who you are not.“
“The gun shot low.”
ENJOYING A NEW CHALLENGE. Minsuk Cho is the South Korean architect who has envisioned the Serpentine Pavilion 2024, the 23rd pavilion in the series, in London’s Kensington Gardens. It is titled Archipelagic Void as a unique void surrounded by a constellation of smaller adaptable structures, each of which has a specific purpose: the Gallery, the Auditorium, the Library, the Play Tower and the Tea House. Minsuk Cho trained in Seoul and New York, and worked in America and the Netherlands before returning to Korea to open his own practice, which he calls Mass Studies.
“Architecture’s unique language allows people to interact, engage and understand in a very positive way.“
“This Serpentine project is exciting because the whole thing only takes six months from conception to completion.“
“The world is changing, and I don’t want to become a jaded professional. I take everything as a new challenge.“
WRITERS ARE UNBALANCED PEOPLE. Paul Theroux is an American novelist and travel writer known for his highly personal award-winning observations on many locales. Over 50 works of fiction and travel writing include modern classics The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, My Secret History and The Mosquito Coast. Theroux’s recent book, Burma Sahib, explores Eric Blair’s years as a British Raj police officer in colonial Burma that transformed him into the anticolonial writer, George Orwell.
"A novelist speculates, and that's my role in life: to invent, to imagine, and to create the person"
"The writer is defining himself or herself with each book"
"Most of my books are about a person, usually a man somewhat like myself, that needs to solve a problem"
AGENT JOSEPHINE: A BETRAYAL TOO FAR. Robert Verkaik is a British author and award-winning journalist. He was the Home Affairs Editor of the Independent and the Security Editor of the Mail on Sunday. He is the author of Defiant: The Untold Story of the Battle of Britain, Posh Boys and Jihadi John: Making of a Terrorist, as well as the Sunday Times bestseller The Traitor of Colditz. He is a non-practising barrister and lives in Surrey. His most recent book is The Traitor of Arnhem: WWII’s Greatest Betrayal and the Moment That Changed History Forever.
"Blunt himself was responsible for editing the MI5 monthly briefings which were handed to Churchill, so was in a very good position to bury everything that Churchill may or may not have wanted to know about Agent Josephine and Arnhem."
"The arguments that Blunt was making about his own treachery are the same ones that some of the British jihadis were using to justify their own actions."
"Things haven't changed as far as the Russian leaders view the world."
FOR THE SAKE OF THE WRITTEN WORD. Vera Michalski-Hoffmann spent her childhood in the Camargue, France, then studied at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland. Together with her husband Jan Michalski, a Polish native, she founded the publishing company Éditions Noir sur Blanc. Together they developed the Libella group, which now comprises a dozen publishing houses in Switzerland, France and Poland. Jan passed away in 2002, and Vera created the Jan Michalski Foundation for Writing and Literature to perpetuate their shared commitment to the written word, to support literary creation and encourage reading. Vera Michalski-Hoffmann has received Polish and French prizes and distinctions, an honorary doctorate from the University of Lausanne, and is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.
“We try to host as many events as possible that bring people back to the written word.”
“Unless properly controlled, the use of AI in the creative process could mean a great impoverishment of the world.”
“For the Gulag evening most of the people in attendance were older, and I would bet that more than half of young people simply don’t know what Gulag is.”
SCULPTING WITH FABRIC. Sergio Roger graduated from Berlin’s Art Academy (UdK) where he studied Sculpture and New Media Art. He has received several important awards and his work has been exhibited in international galleries such as Galleria Rossana Orlandi and Robilant + Voena in New York. Sergio’s work is rooted in his life-long fascination with visual representations of beauty in ancient civilizations, especially the Graeco-Roman era and its modern counterparts.
“I’m passionate and obsessed with these kinds of fabrics”
“Art is the laboratory where things are taken out of the world and seen and put under the light”
“In my daily life, I don’t want distraction.”
EDUCATING THE IMMUNE RESPONSE. Andrea Califano is President of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York. He is the Clyde and Helen Wu Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and also holds appointments in the Departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, Biomedical Informatics, and Medicine. The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network of scientific institutes is supported by and partners with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to help researchers cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of the century.
“We are trying to take over where natural evolution has stopped.”
“We need to learn more about mechanisms that we can harness to generate universal therapies.”
“For Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, we are certainly hoping to accomplish being able to detect them at a stage where they are still treatable.”
ART, SUSTAINABILITY & FUNDRAISING. Victoria Siddall is a non-executive Director of Frieze, a co-founder and trustee of Gallery Climate Coalition, and the Founding Director of Murmur, a new initiative that enables the worlds of visual arts and music to play their part in combatting the climate crisis. A strategic advisor to museums and businesses on art, sustainability and fundraising, Siddall is Chair of the board of trustees of Studio Voltaire, Cultural Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery and a trustee of the Ampersand Foundation UK.
“Frieze Masters was the first fair that I launched and ran as Director.”
“The aim is to unite the art and music industries and channel funds into the most impactful climate initiatives.”
“Artists are really at the heart of the whole art ecosystem, so the investment there is critical.”
BUILDING A GLOBAL NARRATIVE. Gilles Kepel is a university professor, political scientist and Arabist. His books include Terror in France: The Rise of Jihad in the West, Away from Chaos: The Middle East and the challenge to the West, and lately Prophète en son pays (Editions de l’Observatoire: 2023) and Holocaustes (Plon: 2024). He has published 25 books, which have been translated into some 20 languages.
“The Global South is a construct. I believe it won’t stand together.”
“The very notion of Holocaust as meaning the Jewish Holocaust by the Nazis is being put into question by those new leaders of the Global South.”
“I believe that academic knowledge has a global outreach and people are not prisoners of opinion leaders.”
GOING THROUGH STAGES. Graham Steele is a private art dealer, adviser and collector who lives between Los Angeles and Brazil with his husband, Ulysses de Santi, and their young daughter, Asher. Born in rural Vermont, Steele attended Georgetown University, Washington D.C., followed by UCL in London, from which he graduated with his MA in 2004. He started his career at Sotheby’s, joined White Cube in 2006, and is a former partner at the eminent contemporary and modern art gallery Hauser & Wirth, a role which he left in 2020 to start his own business.
“Everything starts with education”
“Collecting is incredibly personality driven”
“I am in the business of helping people find things that are relevant to their lives“
HERE TO SERVE. Joel Mesler is an artist whose career in the art world started as an art dealer and gallerist. A Master of Fine Arts graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, Mesler worked for almost two decades as an art dealer in Los Angeles and New York City, painting on and off while promoting artists Henry Taylor and Rashid Johnson early in their careers. In 2017, Mesler moved to Sag Harbor, where he owns Rental Gallery. He continues to paint, influenced by pop culture and nature as well as his own history of addiction and his Jewish heritage.
"Survival is our badge of honour"
"I'll never stop painting rabbis"
"There's nothing to hide"
WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE ARE. Sir Steve McQueen CBE is a British film director, film producer, screenwriter, and video artist. Over the last 30 years he has created some of the most innovative works of moving image designed for gallery spaces. He has also directed critically acclaimed feature films, including the Academy Award-winning “12 Years a Slave”, as well as “Hunger”, “Shame”, “Widows”, “Blitz”, and “Occupied City”.
“It’s always good to have some kind of understanding of where you are now and why you’re here now.”
“I’m not a slave to the medium.”
“The only reason I do what I do is because I can somehow reflect on who we are or who we want to be.”
THE DIFFICULT HAPPINESS OF BEING JEWISH. Pauline Bebe is the rabbi of Communauté Juive Libérale (CJL), a Progressive Jewish congregation in Paris, where she was the first female rabbi to lead a synagogue.
“The philosophy of Judaism is to maintain hope in times of difficulties, and we have to fight for our ideals of democracy, of humanity, of respect for every living person.”
“A lot of Jews feel that they are not understood; that whatever they say or do will not be understood, but they also think that more than ever they have to reclaim their Judaism.”
“I hope for peace. I hope for dialogue with everyone.”
POWER IS NOTHING WITHOUT CONTROL. Ambrogio Beccaria was born in Milan in 1991 and gained a degree in nautical engineering. In 2019 he became the first Italian in the history of sailing to win the Mini-Transat – the historic solo competition that crosses the Atlantic Ocean on board 6.5 metre boats. Since 2022 Beccaria has been reaching important goals on his boat “Alla Grande – Pirelli” and in 2023 won the Transat Jacques Vabre, the most important race of the year.
“I love everything about sailing.”
“You need to be a sailor. You need to understand your boat, to feel what is going on, to be connected with the sea.”
“Once you won one race then you have to win the next.”
I WANT TO CREATE JUNCTIONS. Hans Ulrich Obrist is a Swiss art curator, critic, and art historian who lives and works in London where he is Artistic Director at Serpentine. Obrist is the author of The Interview Project, an extensive ongoing project of interviews, and is also co-editor of the Cahiers d'Art review.
TRADITION AND INNOVATION. Inigo Lambertini was appointed Ambassador of Italy to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by the Italian Government in February 2022 and arrived in London in October, a few weeks after the death of Queen Elizabeth. Neapolitan by birth, he entered the Italian diplomatic service in 1987, and his career includes recent duties as Chief of Diplomatic Protocol in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome, after New York.
DESIGN OF THE PRESENT INTO THE FUTURE. Tim Marlow OBE is the Chief Executive and Director of The Design Museum which since 2016 is housed in the former premises of the Commonwealth Institute in Kensington, London. Marlow is a curator, writer and broadcaster who has worked with some of the most influential contemporary artists to deliver wide-ranging and popular programmes. He sits on the Board of Trustees for the Imperial War Museum, Sadler’s Wells, Art on the Underground Advisory Board and Cultureshock Media.
TASTEMAKER AND HOTELIER. Jasper Conran is a British designer who studied at Parsons School of Art and Design in New York. He has worked on collections of womenswear and for the home, as well as productions for the stage in ballet, opera and theatre. He opened his first hotel in Morocco, L'Hôtel Marrakech, recently followed by Villa Mabrouka in Tangier.
"I have a store of ideas in my head, and this ability to switch from one thing to another."
"Theatre and ballet let me go crazy."
"I went to see the Saint Laurent house and bought it immediately. I could see what it could be as a hotel."
A MISSION TO STOP EXTINCTION. Fanny Minesi is General Director of Friends of Bonobos - Les Amis des Bonobos du Congo (ABC). Her organisation operates the world’s only sanctuary – Lola ya Bonobo - and only rewilding site for bonobos – Ekolo ya Bonobo. Raised in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), she has been immersed in wildlife conservation since childhood. In November 2023 she was presented with the Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa by William, Prince of Wales. Fanny Minesi works to secure the future of endangered bonobos through rescue and rehabilitation, rewilding, conservation law enforcement, education, and economic development.
"The only way to survive for bonobos is making a transfer of affection with someone or another bonobo. Love is really important for their survival."
"What is different about our organisation is that when small bonobos arrive, we give them a surrogate mother who will give them love and affection."
"If we want Congo to value the protection of its natural resources, we will have to show the country that choosing protection of forest and biodiversity leads to development for the people."
DESIRE FOR FREEDOM. Edward St Aubyn is a British novelist. Five of his books - Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother’s Milk and At Last - form the semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose Novels. In 2018 Benedict Cumberbatch starred in the title role of the five-part drama Patrick Melrose. Edward’s more recent work includes Dunbar - which retells King Lear - and Double Blind, which has been described as 'a book of big ideas, in which the characters experiment with medicine, psychology, narcotics, religion and meditation to understand themselves and find peace. But as cerebral as the book is, it is also deeply felt, because St Aubyn has been thinking about these issues for decades.'
“I spoke in every voice except my own.”
“I had the double relief of having turned myself into Patrick Melrose, and then Benedict Cumberbatch taking over the burden of being Patrick”
“The common driving force of all my work is a desire for freedom”
AT HOME IN TANGIER. Rob Ashford is an American stage director and choreographer. He is a Tony Award, Olivier Award, Emmy Award, Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award winner.
“The actors come, and they all fall in love with Tangier I promise you that.”
“There was blood and mud everywhere, and the audience just really loved it.”
“I was very lucky in my career. I am so happy. I could not be happier.”
STRIKINGLY INVENTIVE STORYTELLER. Edward Carey is an English playwright and illustrator who settled in Austin in 2006 and teaches at the University of Texas. His Italian publisher Elisabetta Sgarbi recently made a short film based on his story “Gatto e la casa dei fantasmi” (“The Cat and the House of Ghosts”) which she showed at the 41st Torino Film Festival.
POSTGRADUATE EDUCATION AT A TIME OF TECHNOLOGY AND TENSION. Costis Maglaras is the Dean of Columbia Business School, and the David and Lyn Silfen Professor of Business at Columbia University. He received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College, London, in 1990, and his MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1991 and 1998, respectively. He joined Columbia Business School in 1998, and prior to becoming dean served as chair of the Decision, Risk & Operations division at the Business School, Director of the School's doctoral program, and was a member of the executive committee of the University's Data Science Institute. He is a Fellow of INFORMS, an Honorary Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, and a Member of the Economic Club of New York.
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ART PRECEDES SCIENCE. Santiago Calatrava is a visionary architect, a structural engineer, a sculptor, and a painter based in Switzerland. In his architecture he has merged advanced engineering solutions with dramatic visual statements.
CHRONICLING CAPITALISM. Francine Lacqua is the London-based award-winning anchor of the Bloomberg Television daily weekday programme The Pulse with Francine Lacqua. She also presents Leaders with Lacqua and is a Bloomberg editor-at-large, fluent in English, Italian and French.
THE WORK OF A LIFETIME. For over 40 years Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara has been involved with the natural history, ecology, behaviour, taxonomy and conservation of marine megafauna. He has a passion for whales, dolphins, seals, sharks and manta rays.
ECONOMIC GROWTH AND HUMAN PROGRESS. Dambisa Moyo is a Zambian-born economist and writer whose books, articles, and public lectures centre on the creation of wealth in a global economy.
THE IDEA IS THE START OF EVERYTHING. Anton Corbijn is a Dutch interdisciplinary artist. Born in 1955, the celebrated portrait photographer has produced some of the most powerful pop culture imagery of the 21st century. He is also a video maker and film director, working with luminaries such as Philip Seymour Hoffman, George Clooney and Helen Mirren.
THE SASSOONS: A FASCINATING FAMILY. Esther da Costa Meyer is Professor emerita in the Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, and Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Architecture. Her recent curatorial work at the Jewish Museum in New York includes The Sassoons, co-curated with Claudia Nahson.
BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER. Architect Lina Ghotmeh was born and raised in Beirut, where she studied at the American University. In 2005, while working in London and collaborating with Ateliers Jean Nouvel and Foster & Partners, she won an international competition to design the Estonian National Museum. Following this victory, she co-founded her first studio, DGT Architects, in Paris. Upon delivery of this project in 2016, she had established Lina Ghotmeh—Architecture. Ghotmeh has won several prestigious awards, has delivered multiple commended projects and designed the Serpentine Pavilion 2023, À Table.
INSPIRED BY BEES. Stephen Buchmann is a pollination ecologist specializing in bees. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Departments of Entomology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona and a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London who works towards a world where nature is understood, valued and protected. In his most recent book What a Bee Knows Buchmann explores the thoughts, memories and personalities of bees.
A SENSE OF TIME. Antoine Compagnon is a literary critic, writer, and professor emeritus at the Collège de France, specializing in Marcel Proust. He is Blanche W. Knopf Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. The author of numerous books on literary criticism and history, he was installed as one of the 40 members of the Académie Française known as “the immortals” in May 2023. He was recently appointed the first writer in residence at the musée du Louvre.
AN EXPERIENCE OF JOY. The artist Jennifer Guidi works and lives in Los Angeles. Represented by Gagosian, Massimo de Carlo and David Kordansky Gallery, her work has been exhibited around the world. Her solo exhibition Mountain Range is on view in the Richard Rogers Gallery at Château La Coste, Aix-en-Provence, France, until September 3rd 2023, and from September 16th to January 7th 2024 the Orange County Museum of Art in California will host her first institutional exhibition in the United States.
THE FLORENCE OF THE FUTURE. Arturo Galansino is the Director General of the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation in Florence since 2015. His impressive career as an art historian and curator had previously taken him to the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the National Gallery and Royal Academy of Arts in London.
CREATING A WEB THAT HOLDS DIFFERENT ELEMENTS TOGETHER. Lee Bul is a contemporary sculpture and installation artist who was born in 1964 to dissident parents under the military dictatorship of Park Chung-Hee in South Korea. Her work investigates the ways that modern art, architecture and technology have shaped both our real and imagined worlds, and questions patriarchal authority and the marginalization of women.
WORKING FROM HOME. Ivor Braka is an art dealer and collector who works privately from his home in London rather than a gallery. For many years he has also been involved in the restoration of Gunton Park in North Norfolk, where he now owns and runs two celebrated pubs.
A CONTINUUM OF CREATIVITY. Philippe Starck is a French creator known for his wide range of designs, including interior design, architecture, household objects, furniture, boats and other vehicles.
A CHRONICLER OF OUR TIMES. Ian McEwan is an English novelist and screenwriter who has been considered as one of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and a leading member of the 100 most powerful people in British culture. His most recent novel Lessons is his longest to date and, translated into Italian as Lezioni, has just been published in Italy by Einaudi.
CONSTRUCTING A SELF THROUGH ART. Jimmy Robert is a visual artist who places the question of the body, racialised, queer, at the centre of his work. Born in 1975 in Guadeloupe, he grew up in France before studying at Goldsmiths College in London and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. He currently lives and works in Berlin, teaching at the UdK, Universität der Künste. His photographs, videos, sculptures, texts and works on paper are usually presented in the form of installations that interweave these various media. He is also known for his performances, with which he questions the visibility of Afro-descendants in art history.
INNOVATION IS THE PATH TO PEACE. Chemi Peres is a Managing Partner and was Co-Founder in 1993 of Pitango, Israel's largest venture capital fund with over $2.8 billion under management. Chemi is also Chairman of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, an independent non-profit, non-governmental, and non-political organization founded in 1996 by his father, Nobel Peace Laureate and former President of Israel Shimon Peres. In 2021 Chemi was awarded the prestigious Reinhard Mohn Prize by the Bertelsmann Stiftung in recognition of his outstanding commitment to promoting innovation that serves both business and society.
A BRIDGE TO BROOKLYN. Anne Pasternak is the Shelby White and Leon Levy Director of the Brooklyn Museum, one of the oldest and largest fine arts institutions in America. Pasternak is devoted to engaging broad audiences through the power of art, and she is a staunch advocate for the civic and democratic roles that cultural and educational institutions can play.
THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN. Giuliano da Empoli is an Italian and Swiss political essayist, journalist and novelist. The founding chairman of Volta, a think tank based in Milan, he was an advisor to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi from 2014 to 2016. Now he is a professor at Sciences Po, The Paris Institute of Political Studies. In 2022 da Empoli published in French his debut novel Le mage du Kremlin, for which he received Le Grand Prix du Roman from l'Académie française.
THE TALENT OF LA NIJINSKA. Lynn Garafola is a dance historian and critic. Professor Emerita of Dance at Barnard College, Columbia University, she is the author of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance. A regular contributor of articles and essays to both scholarly and general interest publications, she is the former editor of the book series "Studies in Dance History," the founder of the Columbia University seminar Studies in Dance, and the curator of exhibitions about the New York City Ballet, Jerome Robbins, and, most recently, the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Her latest book La Nijinska: Choreographer of the Modern is the first to document the full scope of Bronislava Nijinska's creative work and rewrites the history of Euro-American ballet, beginning with Serge Diaghilev's celebrated Ballets Russes in the early 20th century and continuing until the 1960s.
A MAJOR PHILANTHROPIST. John A. Paulson founded Paulson & Co., an investment management firm based in New York. In 2007 his multi-billion payoff shorting the overheated U.S. housing market made him a global industry superstar. He remains active in the markets.
A VERY SPECIAL MOMENT FOR MILANO. Gianfranco Maraniello is an art historian, contemporary art critic and curator. In May 2022 he was selected to be the Director of the Modern and Contemporary Art Museums in Milano, Italy, which includes Museo del Novecento, GAM Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Palazzo Morando | Costume Moda Immagine, Casa Museo Boschi Di Stefano and Studio Museo Francesco Messina.
THE FORMULA OF CREATION. Michelangelo Pistoletto is one of the most influential contemporary artists of his generation and a leading proponent of the Arte Povera movement. In 1998 he founded Cittadellarte, an art and creativity laboratory in a disused textile mill on the Cervo River in Biella, Italy. In his new book, La Formula della Creazione, published by Cittadellarte Edizioni in December 2022, Pistoletto recounts the human and artistic journey that led him to define the Formula of Creation, which he also calls the Formula of Life. His book offers us the opportunity to rethink the cornerstones of our existence, and calls us to a new responsibility towards ourselves, towards each other and towards the nature of which we are a part.
ADDICTED TO WRITING. Benedetta Cibrario was born in Florence, Italy, in 1962, to a father from Turin and a mother from Naples. She is a writer who lives in London. Her books include Rossovermiglio (2007; Campiello Prize 2008), which was followed by Sotto cieli noncuranti (2009; Rapallo Carige Prize 2010), Lo Scurnuso (2011), L'uomo che dormiva al parco (2012) and Il Rumore del Mondo (finalist at Premio Strega 2019). Her latest work, Per ogni parola perduta,was published in 2022.
DOCUMENTING OUR DISPLACEMENT. The filmmaker Amos Gitai was born in Israel in 1950 where his father Munio Gitai Weintraub was a prominent Bauhaus architect and his mother Efratia Margalit an intellectual, a storyteller and a teacher. Amos trained as an architect in Haifa and at UC Berkeley in America before becoming internationally known for his documentaries and feature films about the Middle East, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and personal and collective memory.
A WORLD OF GOOD TASTE. Tino Zervudachi is an internationally acclaimed decorator with an eclectic aesthetic. He has an illustrious clientele that includes some of the world’s most discerning business people, art collectors and bohemian aristocrats. His designs can be seen in sumptuous homes around the world.
CHAMPION OF THE REMARKABLE. Luke Syson is Director and Marlay Curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University since 2019. From antiquity to the present day, the Fitzwilliam houses a world-renowned collection of over half a million beautiful works of art, masterpiece paintings and historical artefacts.
NOMADIC BY NATURE. Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim is an advocate for the greater inclusion of indigenous peoples and their knowledge and traditions in the global movement to fight the effects of climate change. On September 1st 2022 she received the International DVF Award in Venice.
A MOTHER TELLING STORIES OF WAR. Clarissa Ward is a British-American television journalist. She is currently chief international correspondent for CNN. She was with CBS News, based in London, and before her CBS News position, Ward was a Moscow-based news correspondent for ABC News programs.
THE LANGUAGE OF EMOTION. Marco Balich is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of Balich Wonder Studio. In 1989 Balich organised the extraordinary Pink Floyd concert on a floating stage in his birthplace of Venice that was broadcast on TV to 100 million viewers worldwide. Today he is credited with directing and producing a record number of 14 Olympic Ceremonies and 12 Regional Games, as well as producing several other large-scale events all around the globe.
A SCENT OF WISDOM. Moin Mir is a London based writer of Indian origin. His work is influenced by his grandfather, who was a scholar of Sufism. Mir’s most recent book The Lost Fragrance of Infinity is an inspirational story about the rebuilding of a young man's life, conveyed through Sufi metaphor and symbolism.
A PLACE OF MIRACLES. Sylvain Bellenger was born in Normandy, took degrees in philosophy and in art history, directed the Girodet Museum and the Castle of Blois in France, and then moved to the United States. He held curatorial posts at the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago and then in 2014 was appointed Director at Capodimonte in Naples by Dario Franceschini, the Italian minister of culture.
PIERCING THE MYTHS. James Reginato is a writer-at-large for Vanity Fair. In his book, published by Simon & Schuster, titled GROWING UP GETTY, The Story of America’s Most Unconventional Dynasty, he has rectified many popular misunderstandings about one of the world’s wealthiest family dynasties.
PICASSO THE MAGUS. Diana Widmaier-Picasso recently published a book with anthropologist Philippe Charlier (Gallimard) titled Picasso Sorcier and curated an exhibition about her mother Maya with Emilia Philippot that is on until December 31, 2022 at Musée Picasso-Paris. She has also had a presentation during Couture Week in Paris of her other activity, which is jewelry. In 2017 she co-founded with Roy Sebag a company called Menē which specialises in 24 karat gold and platinum jewelry.
OPENING UP THE LOUVRE. Donatien Grau is an editor, scholar and museum executive. He was head of contemporary programs at Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and recently moved to the Louvre, where his continuing mission is to oversee the implementation of contemporary projects that echo the museum's collections.
RECALIBRATING THE WINDSORS. Andrew Lownie is an historian and a literary agent. His most recent book is Traitor King, the Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
FIGURATIVELY ABSTRACT. The artist Bernardo Siciliano was born in Rome in 1969. He lives and works in New York and is best known for his depictions of urban landscapes and nude figures. The son of writer Enzo Siciliano, who was a close friend of Alberto Moravia and Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Siciliano is a multi-award winning artist in both Italy and America. His work has been represented by the Aicon Gallery in New York since 2016.
Flesh is my medium. Miles Greenberg is a New York-based performance artist and sculptor. His work consists of large-scale, sensorially immersive and often site-specific environments revolving around the physical body in space.
BUILDING TOWARDS EQUALITY. Alejandro Aravena is a Chilean architect and executive director of the firm Elemental S.A. In 2016 he won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture’s highest honour, and was the director and curator of the Architecture Section of the 2016 Venice Biennale. From 2000 to 2005 he was a visiting professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design. An International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, he was appointed Chair of the Pritzker Architecture Prize Jury as of March 2021.
AN INCREDIBLE SUCCESS. Roberto Cicutto is President of La Biennale di Venezia, overseeing the city’s prestigious art and architecture biennials as well as the film, dance, theatre and music festivals.
TOP QUALITY. Fabrizio Moretti’s new London gallery in Duke Street, St. James’s, will open on July 1st 2022. The gallery will focus on Old Master paintings and sculptures for top clients and museums.
SAVING THE PLANET ONE MEAL AT A TIME. Dior DeCupper is CEO of Meatless Farm, a plant based food company in a fast growing and purpose led industry.
SAFETY FIRST. Jean Todt is a French motor racing executive and former rally co-driver. He was Peugeot Talbot Sport’s director and then Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 team principal, before being appointed CEO of Ferrari from 2004 to 2008. From 2009 to 2021 he served as the 9th president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon appointed Todt as the United Nations’ Special Envoy for Road Safety in 2015, a role to which he was reappointed by António Guterres in 2018. In January 2018 Todt was appointed to the Board of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens. He also sits on the boards of Gaumont, the Groupe Lucien Barrière and Edmond de Rothschild SA.
AN ENTREPRENEUR WITH IMPACT. Brent Hoberman is Co-Founder and Chairman of Founders Factory, Founders Forum and firstminute Capital. He co-founded lastminute.com in 1998, was CEO from its inception, and sold it in 2005 to Sabre for $1.1bn. He also co-founded Made.com which went public in 2021 for $1.1bn.
THE FLAYING OF MARSYAS. Mary Weatherford is known for her large paintings incorporating neon lighting tubes. The Flaying of Marsyas, the exhibition of her new paintings at the Museo di Palazzo Grimani in Venice, runs through the 59th Biennale until November 27th, 2022. These paintings examine the ways in which time has worked on Marsyas and on Titian’s famous painting of the same name.
THE IMPORTANCE OF A CLASSICAL LEGACY. The writer Marina Valensise was recently appointed CEO of the Italian National Institute of Ancient Drama (Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico, INDA) which manages the ancient Greek Theatre of Syracuse.
SILENT MESSAGES. Delfina Delettrez Fendi is a designer and jeweller based in Rome, Italy. She founded her namesake label Delfina Delettrez in 2007.
PASSION PROJECTS. Andy Harries produces television series including The Crown and Outlander. He is chief executive and co-founder of Left Bank Pictures.
NIMBLE AND QUICK. Saad Mohseni is co-founder and Chairman of MOBY Group, which has brought top tier news and media content to emerging and frontier markets over the past two decades.
IN THE MERCIFUL SHADOWS. Anthony McCarten is best known for writing The Theory of Everything, Darkest Hour, Bohemian Rhapsody and The Two Popes. His play The Collaboration brings Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat together.
DOING BRILLIANTLY. Roula Khalaf is the Editor of the Financial Times (FT). Born in Beirut, after studying in the United States at Syracuse University and Columbia University she first worked for Forbes magazine. From 1995 she was a foreign correspondent at the FT, and in 2016 became Deputy Editor to Lionel Barber, succeeding him as Editor in January 2020.
IN CONTACT. Riccardo Scamarcio is an award winning Italian film actor and producer who has been working since the early 2000s.
BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS AND A BEAUTIFUL EXPERIENCE. Whitney Bromberg Hawkings is the founder and CEO of the online flower shop FLOWERBX.
THE FUTURE OF ENERGY. Francesco Starace is CEO of Enel S.p.A. a multinational company in the energy sector and the largest private renewable player globally.
UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD WE LIVE IN. Jorge Cauz is the Chief Executive of the Britannica Group. The global knowledge leader has a mission to inspire curiosity and the joy of learning.
THE GUGGENHEIM AND GLOBAL INQUISITIVENESS. Richard Armstrong has been the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation since 2008.
THE CHALLENGE OF QUALITY. Cabinet maker Rémi Tessier has joined the ranks of the world’s most admired designers for private boats and planes.
ON THE ROAD WITH DIOR. British menswear designer Kim Jones joined Dior Men as artistic director in 2018. In 2020 he was also named artistic director at Fendi, a position that was previously held by Karl Lagerfeld.
CHINA: A SMART, GROWING, SOPHISTICATED AUDIENCE. Shai Baitel is the inaugural artistic director of the Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai.
CONTEMPORARY DESIGN : ANCIENT CRAFT. Rooshad Shroff founded Rooshad Shroff Architecture + Design in Mumbai, India, in 2011, after he had studied at Cornell University and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
THE EARTH IS MY CLIENT. James Thornton is CEO of ClientEarth, an environmental charity using the law to create change that protects life on Earth.
A LONG HISTORY OF VINICULTURE. Giacomo Cattaneo Adorno is engaged in wine making and the other historical traditions of “Castello di Gabiano”
CONTINUOUS TRANSFORMATION. The Spanish contemporary artist Miquel Barceló is known for his relief-like mixed-media paintings, expressive bronze sculptures and ceramics.
THE POWER OF ONE. Maurice Lévy is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Publicis Groupe, the French multinational advertising & public relations company.
A GREAT COMMUNICATOR. David Puttnam is a British film producer, educator, and environmentalist who recently retired from the House of Lords.
RE-IMAGINING A LANDMARK. Laurent Le Bon is the recently appointed president of Centre Pompidou, which is focused on modern & contemporary art.
A MISSION TO OPEN UP AND RENOVATE. Deborah Swallow has been Märit Rausing Director of The Courtauld Institute of Art & its Gallery since 2004.
WHICH ROADS WILL CHINA FOLLOW TOWARDS 2035? Dr Yu Jie is senior research fellow on China in the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House.
A VERY ECLECTIC PERSON IN THE WORLD OF ART. Martin Bethenod was Deputy CEO of the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection.
IN PRAISE OF PROGRESS. Since June 2020, Denis Olivennes has been shareholder and CEO of the French daily newspaper Libération.
AN EXTRAORDINARY LOVE OF NATURE. Saskia de Rothschild became the youngest person to lead a first growth Bordeaux wine estate in 2018 at the age of 31.
A VERY VERSATILE GARDENER. Lady Tania Compton was Garden Editor for British House & Garden magazine but now concentrates on her landscape practice.
THE CREATIVE CHALLENGE OF CHANEL. Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur is head of Global Creative Resources for Chanel Fragrance, Beauty, Watches and Jewelry.
FROM ENGINEERING TO ACTIVISM. Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a writer, broadcaster, social advocate and a Trustee of The London Library.
THE ARTISTIC VOICE OF FASHION. Pierpaolo Piccioli is Creative Director of Valentino. His Valentino Des Ateliers show in Venice was acclaimed as being at a new level of meaningful collaboration between the worlds of art and fashion.
LEARNING TO LISTEN. Vuslat Doğan Sabancı is a business leader and philanthropist. She recently launched the global Vuslat Foundation in Venice.
BETTING ON GREEN HYDROGEN. Marco Alverà is CEO of Snam, one of the world’s leading energy infrastructure operators and among Italy’s largest listed companies.
CURIOUSLY SUCCESSFUL. The French fashion photographer François Halard is well known for his interior and architectural images.
RADICAL MATERIALIST British sculptor Sir Anthony Cragg, whose current exhibition is at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, a beautiful Palladian house.
WHO CARES WINS. Lily Cole is a British fashion model and actress. The synthesis of Lily’s thinking is optimism for a more sustainable future.
NIGHTS OF PLAGUE. Orhan Pamuk is a Turkish novelist and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University’s School of the Arts in New York. He has sold over thirteen million books in sixty-three languages.
“Racconta anche per noi!” “Racconta!” “Tell our story!” Edith Bruck is a Hungarian-born writer who lives in Italy. Her new book “Il pane perduto” (“The Lost Bread”) is one of the candidates for the 2021 Premio Strega, the most important Italian literary award.
THE MAN WHO SAVED POMPEII. Massimo Osanna was Director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park. He is now Director General of all Italian museums.
A BIGAMOUS COUNTESS? The Duchess Countess author Catherine Ostler has been Editor-in-Chief of Tatler. She read English at Oxford and is expert in 18thC literature.
THE SEASONS TURN. Idris Khan works in sculpture, painting and photography. His latest exhibition The Seasons Turn is at Victoria Miro gallery.
LIVING THE VENETIAN DREAM. Count Giberto Arrivabene Valenti Gonzaga is one of the last aristocrats in Venice who is still living in his palazzo.
REVIVAL IN VENICE. Mario Codognato is a contemporary art curator. Raised in Venice, today he is the director of the Anish Kapoor Foundation.
A TRAGIC ASSIMILATION. Edmund de Waal is an artist who exhibits in museums and a bestselling author. His new book is LETTERS TO CAMONDO.
HER OWN WOMAN. Giovanna Buzzi is a costume designer and fabricator, owner of SlowCostume workshop for the creation of costumes for the theatre.
AT HOME IN TANGIER. Nicolò Castellini Baldissera is an interior designer, aesthete, and garden dilettante who found his happiness in Tangier.
ONE WORLD. Ronald Lauder is President of the World Jewish Congress, on the board of the Estée Lauder Companies & Chairman of Clinique Laboratories.
CONTEMPORARY ART AND TRADITION. Salvatore Settis is an archaeologist & art historian. The author of Incursioni has just curated an extraordinary exhibition of the Torlonia Marbles.
AZ FACTORY: smart fashion that cares, made for everyone. Israeli fashion designer ALBER ELBAZ is the founder of Richemont-backed AZ Factory.
A NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT: LESS ABOUT ME. MORE ABOUT WE.
Minouche Shafik is an Egyptian-born British-American economist who has been the Director of the London School of Economics (LSE) since 2017. Minouche Shafik was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England from 2014 to 2017.
THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION. Fabrizio Moretti is the founder of Galleria Moretti, located first in Florence and then London and most recently Monaco. The prestigious and philanthropic Moretti gallery is internationally known, particularly for its work with Old Master paintings.
MAKING THE DIG. Gabrielle Tana is producer of The Dig, a Netflix 2021 release in which Ralph Fiennes plays amateur archaeologist Basil Brown
TO WRITE A MASTERWORK. Philip Mansel is a historian of France & the Middle East. His latest book is “King of the World, The Life of Louis XIV”.
TO BE A WRITER. René de Ceccatty is a writer, both of numerous novels & also biographies, including those of Pasolini, Moravia & Elsa Morante.
Décors Barbares is the textile company and design studio of Nathalie Farman-Farma, who specializes in fabrics inspired by the decorative history of Iran, Russia, and Central Asia. Prior to that, Nathalie worked in the publishing industry in New York City. She was an associate editor for The New Yorker magazine and a cultural producer for the Charlie Rose Show.
HOW THE WORLD WE LIVE IN WAS CREATED. Historian, novelist and TV presenter Simon Sebag Montefiore has been reading extensively during lockdown. He recommends some delightful books and offers his perspective on Trump’s failed putsch.
A MAN WITH A MISSION. The conductor Alvise Casellati is creator of “Opera Italiana is in the Air” whose debut was in Central Park, New York.
THE KILLING CODE. Washington Post reporter Vincent Bevins is the author of “The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder that Shaped Our World”. His book asks why the US government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians in 1965, and shows that the brutal extermination of unarmed leftists was a fundamental part of Washington’s final triumph in the Cold War.
Dr Virgilio Sacchini is a professor of surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the University of Milan.
THE STORY OF VAUX-LE-VICOMTE. Alexandre de Vogüé and his two brothers own and run the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, one of the greatest Historical Monuments in France.
FERRUCCIO FERRAGAMO: PATERFAMILIAS OF MERIT. The Executive Chairman of the Board of Salvatore Ferragamo S.p.A. has recently received Italy's highest business award.
FACT OR FICTION? Robert Lacey is a writer and historical consultant to THE CROWN. Netflix releases the fourth TV series on November 15, 2020. Lacey recently published Battle of Brothers: William and Harry – The Inside Story of a Family in Tumult.
AUTHENTIC VOICES. James Fox is an acclaimed writer whose books include White Mischief, Life - Keith Richards, and Look Again – David Bailey.
HOW DO WE MOVE FROM HUMILIATION TO HUMAN DIGNITY? His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan is well known for his international humanitarian work. He was recently appointed Honorary Chair of the World Refugee & Migration Council together with former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
A BRAVE MOVE PAYS DIVIDENDS. MILA ASKAROVA founded GAZELLI ART HOUSE in London’s Mayfair in 2010 as an additional space to its BAKU gallery.
Ruth Rogers started her celebrated London restaurant THE RIVER CAFE in 1987 with her partner Rose Gray. It is still going strong today.
THE CHANGING FACE OF EUROPE. Anand Menon is a Professor of European Politics at King’s College London and Director of the “UK in a Changing Europe”.
THE MINIMALIST WITH MAXIMUM EXPRESSION. Joseph Dirand is an architect and interior designer based in Paris. He started his own design firm in 1999.
THE ECLECTIC SHOEMAKER. Christian Louboutin is a designer whose work & creativity the Palais de la Porte Dorée in Paris is presenting as a major exhibition.
JOSEPH RYKWERT is one of the world's leading authorities on the history of art and architecture. We publish this interview to celebrate his 94th birthday. Born in Warsaw in 1926, he is currently Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture Emeritus and Professor of Art History at the University of Pennsylvania. The author of numerous books, among his most celebrated are The Golden House, On Adam's House in Paradise and The Idea of a Town.
CHERRY BLOSSOMS IN PARIS. Damien Hirst discusses his career and the new paintings on beauty, life and death that he plans to exhibit at Fondation Cartier.
CIAO! The photographer Mario Testino has created his personal love token for Italy’s people, art, food, and fashion in the form of a new book published by TASCHEN.
REBUILDING THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN RUSSIA. Berel Lazar is a Jewish Orthodox, Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic rabbi. He became Chief Rabbi of Russia in 2000.
RETURN TO GENOA. Carlo Clavarino is the Executive Chairman of AON insurance company’s EMEA region. He recently bought & restored the Palazzo Spinola in Genoa.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FLORENCE. Paola D’Agostino is Director of the Musei del Bargello, a new five museum group put together in Florence after the 2014 reforms.
INDEPENDENT, INCLUSIVE AND INSPIRATIONAL. Marlene Taschen is the CEO of the international publishing house TASCHEN that was founded by her father Benedikt, who is also a collector of contemporary art.
CONNECTING THE WORLD. The sculptor ANTONY GORMLEY is perhaps best known for his large installations in public space. A major exhibition of his work was recently held at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. His next exhibition is at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris Marais.
BUILDING VESSELS OF LIGHT. Renzo Piano is an Italian architect whose notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, The Shard in London, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens etc. Renzo Piano won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998. In 2013 he was made a Life Senator in Italy.
AN EYE FOR THE REAL. The London based photographer, filmmaker, and author Mary McCartney’s photographs have been shown at leading international institutions and galleries. Mary’s editorial work has featured in GQ, Vogue, and The Sunday Times, and she has been a guest editor of National Geographic Magazine. Mary McCartney was selected to take the official photograph of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2015 when she became the longest-reigning British monarch in history.
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A PASSION FOR PROUVÉ. Patrick Seguin is the founder of Galerie Patrick Seguin in Paris. He has a particular love for the work of the French designer Jean Prouvé.
DISRUPTIVE RESEARCH. Fabiola Gianotti is Director-General of CERN which works to uncover what the universe is made of & how it works by providing particle accelerator facilities.
A COLOURFUL CONVERSATION. Paris based interior designer India Mahdavi is internationally known for her expressive mix of colours that argue with each other and for her furniture design.
A LAWYER IN KABULA LAWYER IN KABUL. Kimberley Motley a public defender from Milwaukee trained lawyers in war-torn Afghanistan, then represented prisoners in Afghani courts.
WHAT MATTERS MOST IS NOT THE WHAT BUT THE HOW.
The artist David Salle was born in 1952. He divides his time between his studio in Brooklyn, New York City and his studio in East Hampton, Long Island. His eclectic talent encompasses being a painter, a photographer, a printmaker, a stage designer, and a writer.
GLOBAL ART. The art dealer Larry Gagosian has evolved his business into a global network of seventeen exhibition spaces with a vibrant contemporary program that features the work of leading international artists.
PRODUCTIONS FOR PRISONERS. Wasfi Kani OBE is the founder and CEO of Grange Park Opera and Pimlico Opera, through which she enriches the lives of British prisoners and primary school children by exposure to music.
DOYENNE OF DESIGN.Nina Yashar founded the famous Nilufar gallery in Milan, the reference point to lovers of historical design as well as to people following the evolution of contemporary design.
MADE FOR ALL. John Jay is the President of Global Creative at Fast Retailing, the parent company of Uniqlo, a Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer.
THE PRADO AT 200. Miguel Falomir is director of the Prado Museum in Madrid and is celebrating the Prado’s Bicentenary in 2019 with exhibitions and activities.
THE GENIUS OF LIGHT. Trained as a philosopher and gardener, the Spanish garden designer Fernando Caruncho began his career 40 years ago and has made private and public projects all over the world. His two sons, Fernando and Pedro, trained as architects and now work with their father, embodying a new generation raised in gardens and brought up in the importance of the connection between landscape, garden, architecture and humankind.
A COLLECTION OF BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. Dr Nicholas Cullinan was appointed Director of the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2015.
TO BE BORN MALE IS AN INCURABLE DISEASE. Italian Strega Prize winning author Edoardo Albinati explores male gender identity deeply in his long book 'The Catholic School'...
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF FERRAGAMO. Paul Andrew is an English fashion designer. In February 2019, Andrew was appointed Creative Director of the globally successful Salvatore Ferragamo brand.
THE INSPIRATION OF HOSPITALITY. André Balazs and his father co-founded a biotechnology company called Biomatrix in 1988. André started to invest in properties a few years before their successful sale of Biomatrix in 2000, and he now owns and manages a string of high-end hotels. Most are located in historic buildings that he has renovated, including the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles, The Mercer in New York and the Chiltern Firehouse in London.
A LAYERED APPROACH TO LANDSCAPE. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) award winning landscape designer TODD LONGSTAFFE-GOWAN brings to his garden design a sense of the complexities of our relation to the past that is informed by his training and experience as an architect, landscape architect, cultural geographer and historian.
The interview with the distinguished art dealer and philanthropist ANTHONY D'OFFAY takes place in his elegant first-floor office on London’s Dering Street, a historic wood-paneled room where he works with his young assistant. Downstairs is Postcard Teas, a shop selling exquisite rare varieties of teas, which is run by Anthony’s son Timothy and his Japanese wife Asako. At Anthony’s request, a pot of delicious caffeine-free Chinese tea is bought up for us to drink during the interview.
MATTERS OF IMPORTANCE. Peter Mandelson on Brexit lies, Boris Johnson, the weak & ineffective response of Jeremy Corbyn, anti-Semitism, Northern Ireland, and the EU.
Almine Ruiz-Picasso owns the Almine Rech Gallery in Paris, Brussels, London and New York. She is married to Bernard Picasso and she has four children.
In ARTISTS I STEAL FROM the 36-year-old artist Alvaro Barrington and Julia Peyton-Jones, the very well appreciated contemporary art curator, bring together works by 49 artists who influence Alvaro’s work. The exhibition is at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in London from 5th June to 9th August 2019.
LIONEL BARBER is the Editor of the Financial Times (FT). Since his appointment in 2005, Lionel Barber has helped to transform the Financial Times into a multi-channel global news organization, and during Barber’s editorship, the FT has won many international awards for its journalism.
DAVID SNOWDON is Honorary Chairman, Christie’s EMERI (Europe, Middle East, Russia and India). He is a craftsman who founded the bespoke design, furniture and cabinetry firm LINLEY. His father Antony Armstrong-Jones became the 1st Earl of Snowdon after he married Princess Margaret, the sister of Queen Elizabeth II, and David was styled as Viscount Linley. When his father died in 2017 David Linley became the 2nd Earl of Snowdon.
WE DEFEND INCREDIBLY BRAVE WRITERS WHO RISK EVERYTHING FOR THE TRUTH. Jennifer Clement is an American-Mexican author whose novels have been translated into 30 languages. In 2015 she was elected the first woman President of PEN International (PEN stands for Poets, Essayists, Novelists), a worldwide association of writers founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere.
The great Toni Morrison. Born in 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize in Literature winning novelist, an editor, and a teacher. Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988, and Toni Morrison’s novels are known for their epic themes, exquisite language and the richly detailed African-American characters who are central to their narratives. Toni Morrison lives in a sun-filled house by the Hudson River. On a Saturday afternoon Victoire Bourgois and I took a ride 45 minutes up the Hudson River with a driver who had lived his whole life in New York and pointed to us all the different areas of New Jersey, Upstate, Yonkers, Connecticut. When we arrived she greeted us warmly, and when talking about her writing process she said: ‘My desk does not face the river, otherwise I would not do a thing all day but watch the river. Here there is a mixture of salt water and tidal movements and fresh water, because it is so close to New York City.’
FOLLOWING THE GYPSY FAERIE QUEENE. My interview with MARIANNE FAITHFULL took place in her flat on the Boulevard du Montparnasse in Paris on a lovely autumn day in 2018.
REINVENTING LONDON’S LEGENDARY LUXURY HOSPITALITY. International entrepreneur Paddy McKillen has a passion for the hospitality business and property development. In 2004 he was part of a group that bought four of London’s 5-star hotels: Claridge’s, The Berkeley, The Connaught and The Savoy.
The following interview with the architect Zaha Hadid (1950-2016) took place in the Royal Academicians’ Room in the Keeper’s House at the Royal Academy of Arts in London’s Mayfair. The invited audience was generously welcomed by Charles Saumarez Smith, then the Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy.
CONNECTING HUMANS AND NATURE. I interviewed the eminent Japanese architect Tadao Ando at Château La Coste, the beautiful hotel and vineyard located near Aix-en-Provence, where Ando was opening a show of his drawings in the art centre that he built in 2011. Afterwards, Ando was going on to Paris, as he is restoring and rebuilding the Bourse de Commerce building to become a museum that houses the Pinault Collection.
Julian Fellowes is an English actor, novelist, film director and screenwriter, known for the screenplay for the film Gosford Park and as the creator, writer and executive producer of the multiple award-winning television series Downton Abbey. In this 2015 interview, he discusses the characters he develops for Downton Abbey and the sometimes surprising way in which his public responds to them.
Dr. Montefiore is a historian of Russia and the Middle East. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he has been awarded the Literary Prize Lupicaia del Terriccio 2017 for his book ‘The Romanovs: 1613-1918’.He is the author of ‘Catherine the Great and Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair’, ‘Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar’, ‘Young Stalin’ and ‘Jerusalem: The Biography’. Also a novelist, he completed his Moscow trilogy in June 2017 with the publication of ‘Red Sky at Noon’.