Shows
Alain Elkann InterviewsFrom War Zones to Cultural Diplomacy: Claudio Pagliara on Peace, Power, and a Changing World - Alain Elkann InterviewsPROMOTING ITALIAN CULTURE AND BRIDGING CULTURAL DIVIDES. Claudio Pagliara is a journalist who became the Director of the Italian Cultural Institute on Park Avenue in New York in September 2025, soon after he completed his term as head of the RAI Radiotelevisione italiana correspondence office in the United States. With enormous international experience that includes living in Jerusalem for almost 10 years, he was foreign desk chief at Tg2 — Italy's second state channel — for seven years. His recent book L'imperatore is a journey through America's transformation and the challenge it poses to the world. Pagliara holds a degree in linguistic philosophy from Rom...
2026-02-1543 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsThe Uffizi: Simone Verde on The Hidden Galleries, New Acquisitions, and the Future of Florence's #1 Institution - Alain Elkann InterviewsANTHROPOLOGY REGENERATES CULTURE. Simone Verde is a museologist and art historian who was appointed Director of the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, Italy, in December 2023, replacing Eike Schmidt who moved to Capodimonte. From 2014 to 2016 Simone Verde was head of scientific research at the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, and from 2016 to 2023 he directed the Complesso Monumentale della Pilotta in Parma, Italy, whose total restoration and refurbishment he completed. Verde studied Theoretical Philosophy in Rome and Paris, has a doctorate in Anthropology of Cultural Heritage, and a degree in Museology and Art History at the École du Louvre. "The strength of ar...
2026-02-0841 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsInside New York's Most Beloved Museum: Axel Rüger on the New Era of The Frick - Alain Elkann InterviewsTHE REGENERATION OF THE FRICK. Axel Rüger is a German art historian, curator and museum director. Director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam from 2006 to 2019, he previously worked as a curator of Dutch art at the National Gallery in London. He led the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 2019 through 2024, and in March 2025 assumed the directorship of The Frick Collection in New York City. "You get a sense of how the Fricks lived at the time, even though we do not really talk much about their daily life." "For the first time, th...
2026-02-0138 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsColin Bailey: The Caravaggio Masterpiece New York Rarely Gets to See - Alain Elkann InterviewsREALISING WONDERFUL IDEAS. Colin Bailey is a British art historian and Director of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. He is a scholar of eighteenth and nineteenth century French art, with a specific interest in the artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. For the first time ever in America, Caravaggio's Boy With A Basket Of Fruit is on show at The Morgan. "Renoir Drawings is a survey of Renoir working on paper, drawings, pastels; and then how some of those drawings relate to paintings and even sculpture. "We also are a teaching institution, so we want t...
2026-01-2532 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsProfessor Eugene Rogan: The Arabs - How the Modern Middle East Was Shaped - Alain Elkann InterviewsHISTORIAN OF THE ARABS. Professor Eugene Rogan is Director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony's College, University of Oxford. He has a B.A. in economics from Columbia, and an M.A. and PhD in Middle Eastern history from Harvard. Among many other titles, he is author of The Arabs: A History which has been translated into 18 languages and was named one of the best books of 2009 by The Economist, The Financial Times, and The Atlantic Monthly. "The Arab peoples were never reconciled to being colonised by the British and French." "The idea of united Ara...
2026-01-1823 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsIs Design Art? Inside the Gallery Shaping the Icons of the 21st Century: Clémence and Didier Krzentowski - Alain Elkann InterviewsVISIONARY IN DESIGN. Clémence and Didier Krzentowski founded Galerie kreo in 1999. Today Galerie kreo is located in a very beautiful building in 31 rue Dauphine in the centre of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. It is a gallery of 20th and 21st century design and they are preparing a very important exhibition that will take place at Christie's in Paris from January 14 to January 28, 2026, when they will present the masterpieces of their collection, 65 iconic pieces from the gallery. "We call ourselves a research laboratory, because the idea is not to produce just another chair or table, but to give the des...
2026-01-1149 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsMarco Delogu on Facing Antonello da Messina as a Photographer - Alain Elkann InterviewsINTIMATE DIALOGUES WITH ANTONELLO DA MESSINA. Marco Delogu is an acclaimed Italian photographer, publisher, and cultural director whose work focuses on portraits of groups sharing common languages and experiences. He served a successful four year term as the Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in London from 2015 to 2019, noted for his innovative approach as the first photographer leading such an institute. Since 2022 Delogu is President of the Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, an instrumental body of the city of Rome that manages an integrated system of cultural spaces and events, capable of reaching a large and attentive audience. "Antonello was in...
2026-01-0443 min
Alain Elkann Interviews"Identity Is Something You Choose" — Simone Fattal on Art, Exile, and Belonging - Alain Elkann InterviewsMANIFESTATIONS OF THE VOYAGE. Simone Fattal is a Lebanese-American artist. Born in 1942 in Damascus, she was educated in Beirut and Paris, studying philosophy at the École des Lettres and the Sorbonne, as well as archaeology at the École du Louvre. Simone Fattal and Etel Adnan (1925–2021) were life partners for 49 years, artists who shared a profound creative, political, and personal connection. Their multidisciplinary work spans painting, sculpture, poetry, and publishing. "We have to ask the women prisoners to write the poems. Which they did, and I transcribed them on the surfaces of the lava." "My inspiration doesn't c...
2025-12-2843 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsWhat It Means to Be Jewish Today: The Chief Rabbi of Rome - Riccardo Di Segni - Alain Elkann InterviewsCOMMITTED TO DIALOGUE. Riccardo Di Segni is the Chief Rabbi of Rome and director of the Italian Rabbinical School since 2001. He is a retired medical doctor specializing in radiology, and as Vice President of the National Committee for Bioethics (Comitanto Nazionale per la Bioetica) in Italy combines his rabbinical duties with his background in medicine. Di Segni is an author whose work focuses on religious, historical, and cultural aspects of Jewish life. "Despite everything, Judaism endures." "It is the world that is changing, not just Israel." "My mother always told me, 'It's difficult to...
2025-12-2159 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsGildo Zegna on Building a Family Empire That Lasts Four Generations - Alain Elkann InterviewsTHE GOLDEN FLEECE OF ZEGNA. Ermenegildo "Gildo" Zegna is Chairman and CEO of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group, founded in 1910 as a textile company by his grandfather and namesake in Trivero, Italy. Under his leadership, the Group has strengthened its position in high-end menswear and has grown into one of the leading global companies in the luxury sector. In 2011, Zegna was awarded the title of Cavaliere del Lavoro (Knight of Labour) by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. In 2021, the Ermenegildo Zegna Group was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. "Our vertically integrated "sheep-to-shop" model is unique in luxury. Next year...
2025-12-1442 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsWhy Culture Matters More Than Ever - Cardinal Tolentino de Mendonça's Call to Humanity - 263 - Alain Elkann InterviewsJosé Tolentino de Mendonça is a theologian, university professor, and one of the most original voices in modern Portuguese. Born in the island of Madeira in 1965, today he is Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, an administrative unit of the Roman Curia. He is Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Institute for Christian Archaeology and a Bishop since 2018. From 2018 to 2022 he was Librarian of the Holy Roman Church. He was made a Cardinal in October 2019. "The common thread running through my story is the importance of attention to culture, dialogue, and the power of knowledge and...
2025-12-0758 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsInside Global Power: Giuliano da Empoli on Trump, Putin & the New Tech Elites - Alain Elkann InterviewsMPERIAL PLAY. Giuliano da Empoli was born in 1973. He is an Italian and Swiss writer and political scientist living in France. He was a senior advisor to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. His debut novel The Wizard of the Kremlin became an international bestseller and was translated into 35 languages. A 2025 film version stars Jude Law as Vladimir Putin. His latest book The Hour of the Predator is currently France's best-selling non-fiction title. "These characters could originate from a Machiavelli book or a Roman history book." "The predator's political miracle is bypassing rules and laws, transgressing and w...
2025-11-3052 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsMishal Husain: The Art of the Interview in an Age of Noise - Alain Elkann InterviewsA JOURNEY THROUGH JOURNALISM. Mishal Husain is a celebrated British journalist who joined Bloomberg from the BBC, where she presented its leading news programme Today on BBC Radio 4 for over a decade. Before joining Today in 2013, she was an anchor on the international news channel BBC World News. In 2024 she was awarded the Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contribution to Journalism by the British Journalism Review. Mishal has written a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller family memoir, Broken Threads: A Family From Empire to Independence, and The Skills: How to Win at Work. "The Elon Musk interview is a...
2025-11-2320 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsArchitecture as a Language - Sean Griffiths on Cities, Power & Design - Alain Elkann InterviewsMODERN ARCHITECT. Sean Griffiths is Professor of Architecture at the University of Westminster and former Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale University. His current architecture and design practice Modern Architect was founded in 2014 and has worked largely on residential, commercial and public art projects. Previously Sean Griffiths was a founding director of the internationally renowned art/architecture practice FAT, where he won many design awards. FAT represented the UK at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014. "I was really thinking I would pursue a career as an artist" "The idea that you make architecture as a...
2025-11-1641 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsChange Yourself, Change the World: Wisdom from Buddhist Monk Nicholas Vreeland - Alain Elkann InterviewsPHOTOGRAPHER MONK. Nicholas Vreeland, also known as Rato Khensur Thubten Lhundup, is a Tibetan Buddhist monk and the former abbot of Rato Dratsang, an important 14th-century Tibetan Buddhist monastery reestablished in India. The first and only Westerner the Dalai Lama has appointed Abbot of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, he is a photographer who learned his craft as an assistant to Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. "Once you are a monk, you may receive a teaching from a holy being, a lama or master, on techniques by which you can cultivate concern for others and diminish self-cherishing."
2025-11-0941 min
Alain Elkann Interviews"Half Poetry, Half Science": The Art of Food with River Cafe's Ruthie Rogers - Alain Elkann InterviewsEASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY. Ruthie Rogers CBE is an American and British chef who owns and runs the Michelin starred Italian restaurant The River Café in Hammersmith, London. She is the widow of the Italian-born British architect Richard Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside, who together with Renzo Piano created the Pompidou Centre in Paris. "I always want somebody to come to the River Cafe and leave happier than they arrived." "A lot of immigrants talk about the food of their grandmothers, because very often the mothers adapt and the grandmothers retain the cooking of their co...
2025-10-1934 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsCoco Brandolini: Building Dada. Small-Batch Luxury, Big Identity - 257 - Alain Elkann InterviewsREVOLUTIONALIZING FASHION IN MILAN. Coco Brandolini was nobly born in France. An Italian fashion executive, artist and designer, in 2022 she launched her own brand called d'AddA and established it in a charming apartment on Via Montenapoleone in Milano. She describes her enterprise as a joyous ode to her heritage transformed into limited edition pieces made from upcycled materials. "The craftsmanship is superb. Milano is the most interesting and efficient city for me to work. Everything is here." "Clients love that each piece is almost unique." "If a woman is comfortable with the clothing she...
2025-10-1236 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsInside Design Miami: Jennifer Roberts on Paris, Miami, and Beyond - 256 - Alain Elkann InterviewsGLOBALLY RELEVANT DESIGN. JENNIFER ROBERTS became the Chief Executive Officer of Design Miami, the global forum for collectible design, in 2015. She has introduced several new verticals for the company including Design Miami Curatorial Lab, a strategic consultancy to help businesses build cultural capital. In addition, Roberts successfully launched Design Miami.Paris and developed new event formats including Podium and In Situ. Born and raised in Manhattan, schooled in London, she has a residence in the unspoiled jungles of Ilha Grande, Brazil. "The interior design market comes through Paris." "All of the great architects have done...
2025-10-0544 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsAmos Gitai: "Our Voyage on This Beautiful Planet Is Short - Do What You Love" - 255 - Alain Elkann InterviewsINSCRIBING IDEAS TO MEMORY. Amos Gitai is an Israeli film-maker, internationally known for his documentaries and feature films about the Middle East, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and personal and collective memory. Born in Haifa, Israel in 1950, Gitai was wounded during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when a medical evacuation helicopter in which he was travelling was hit by a Syrian missile. He has drawn on biographical, familial and generational themes throughout his career, as well as the trauma of war and the celebration of life in the face of adversity. "You have to inscribe some ideas in memory"
2025-09-2840 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsCaravaggio, Vermeer & the Power of Museums – Dr Caroline Campbell - Alain Elkann InterviewsART FOR PUBLIC PURPOSE. Dr Caroline Campbell was born and educated in Belfast, and became Director of the National Gallery of Ireland in 2022. She studied Modern History at University College Oxford, and has an MA and PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. A former Fellow of the Center for Curatorial Leadership, New York, before joining the National Gallery of Ireland, Caroline was Director of Collections and Research at the National Gallery, London. Earlier in her career she held curatorial positions at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the Courtauld Gallery, London, and the National Gallery. Caroline has pu...
2025-09-2133 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsAntonio Monfreda: A Life in Art, Fashion & Photography - Alain Elkann InterviewsCOSINESS NEVER GOES OUT OF FASHION. Antonio Monfreda is an Italian art director and curator who has become a defining figure in the worlds of design, photography, and art direction. As international editor of Martina Mondadori's Cabana Magazine since 2016, from the very first issue he turned his talent to the photography of interiors and lifestyle. Monfreda's new book Tuscan Rooms: Interiors from the Heartland of the Renaissance, published by Rizzoli International Publications and Cabana, is an exclusive look into Tuscan interiors that has the hallmarks of Cabana Magazine's coverage of remarkable, eclectic, and dramatic spaces. "Tuscany is...
2025-09-1433 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsInside LUMA Arles: Maja Hoffmann on Art, Nature & Change - Alain Elkann InterviewsA VISION OF TRANSFORMATION. Explore the impact of Maja Hoffmann on contemporary culture through her LUMA Foundation and innovative art projects. Maja Hoffmann is a Swiss art collector and patron. The Founder and President of LUMA Foundation, she has led the development of LUMA Arles in Provence, an important international cultural project. By addressing urgent issues in culture, nature, scientific experimentation and ecology, she has promoted new structures for innovation and positive change. Her efforts have earned LUMA widespread recognition for its diverse projects and artistic programs. Appointed President of Locarno Film Festival in 2023, Maja Hoffmann is the President of the...
2025-09-0742 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsThaddaeus Ropac on Passion, Purpose, and the Future of Contemporary Art - 251 - Alain Elkann InterviewsTOWARDS THE ULTIMATE GALLERY. Thaddaeus Ropac is an Austrian born gallerist specializing in international contemporary art. He founded the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in 1981, and today he represents more than 70 artists with galleries located in Salzburg, Le Marais and Pantin in Paris, London and Seoul. In September 2025 he will open his new 280 m2 space in Palazzo Belgioioso in Milan, with a show titled Georg Baselitz and Lucio Fontana, L'aurora viene (The Dawn is Coming). "Milan is the heartbeat of Italian art making." "We represent around 70 artists and estates." "I was able to help some inc...
2025-08-3153 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsWill AI Replace Writers? André Aciman on Love, Writing, and the Future of Literature - Alain Elkann InterviewsPASSION COMES WITH AN EXPIRATION DATE. André Aciman is an Italian-American writer. Born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, he is the New York Times bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name, Out of Egypt, Eight White Nights, False Papers, Alibis, Harvard Square, Enigma Variations, Homo Irrealis, Roman Year, and Find Me. He is currently a distinguished professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he teaches the history of literary theory and the works of Marcel Proust. Aciman is the editor of The Proust Project. He lives with his wife Susan Wiviott in M...
2025-08-2442 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsChristine Orban: Inside the Heart of Princess Diana - Alain Elkann InterviewsMISS SPENCER. Christine Orban is a French writer who was born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco. She lives in Paris and is the author of more than twenty bestselling novels. Her recent book titled "Mademoiselle Spencer" is about Diana, Princess of Wales. It will be published In Italy as "La Signorina Spencer" by Libreria Pienogiorno on July 31st 2025. "Diana thought she was chosen by a man in love, but she was chosen by an institution at work!" "She eclipses her husband; the revenge is not calculated." "I cannot live without recreating the world, probably...
2025-08-1728 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsInternational Comfort Food & Social Media Fame: Jeremy Scheck's Culinary Journey - Alain Elkann InterviewsCOOKING SMARTER. Jeremy Scheck has charmed a new generation of home cooks with his simple tasty recipes and reliable culinary know-how. He is the author of ScheckEats―Cooking Smarter: Friendly Recipes with a Side of Science and has been featured on the Today show, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, BBC Radio, People, and Access Hollywood, among others. A graduate of Cornell University with a double major in Spanish and Italian, and significant coursework in food science, Jeremy was brought up in Washington D.C. "The book evolved into being accessible more broadly and not directed only for students."
2025-08-1040 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsBarry Diller: Either You Are or You Aren't – A Life of Bold Decisions - Alain Elkann InterviewsWHO KNEW. Barry Diller is an American businessman and philanthropist who recently published his life story in his book Who Knew with Simon and Schuster. The chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia Group, he founded the Fox Broadcasting Company with Rupert Murdoch and USA Broadcasting. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1994. Barry Diller is married to the fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg. "You fake it until you make it" "It became the number one network, and when there were only four networks that was some achievement." "Seren...
2025-08-0343 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsDavid McDermott on Living in the Past: I Time Traveled Through Art - Alain Elkann InterviewsA TRYST WITH TIME. David McDermott is an artist whose work has been exhibited internationally since the 1980s. In his experiments with time he emphatically insists on the beautiful and the miraculous, looking beyond the promises of techno-modernity and mirroring themes of 19th century artists' rejection of the Industrial Revolution. "This old-fashioned concept of moving forward in time and abandoning the past, abandoning civilisation to move forward, it's a very outdated concept." "Right now, my painting's a rebellion against modern art." "I'm very interested in my life now, which is different from the on...
2025-07-2733 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsHope, Friendship, and Faith: A Life of Service with Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe - Alain Elkann InterviewsIN CONVERSATION WITH CARDINAL TIMOTHY RADCLIFFE : A LIFE OF HOPE AND HUMANITY. Timothy Radcliffe OP is an English priest who served as Master of the Order of Preachers from 1992 to 2001. He is the only friar of the Dominican Order's English Province to hold the office of Master-General. Created a Cardinal by Pope Francis in 2024, he took part in the recent Conclave to elect Pope Leo XIV, the first American Pope. "What really sustains me all my life has been friendship." "You meet people as a fellow seeker after meaning, because every human is really in...
2025-07-2046 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsFrom Antiques to Albany: Lucy Moore on Christopher Gibbs - Alain Elkann InterviewsTHE CHRISTOPHER GIBBS AESTHETIC. Lucy Moore is an author and historian, well-known for her engaging biographies, including of the dancer Nijinsky, the politician and rake Lord Hervey, and three generations of Indian princesses in Maharanis. She wrote Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties and the widely acclaimed In Search of Us: Adventures in Anthropology. As Editor of the book Christopher Gibbs: His World she sought to create an enduring memorial to Christopher Gibbs, the renowned British antiques dealer, decorator, and quintessential English gentleman-aesthete, who died in Morocco in 2018. "The gentleman-aesthete is a great English tradition and he...
2025-07-1333 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsInside the Mind of a True Original: Why Rolf Sachs Refuses to Copy - Alain Elkann InterviewsALWAYS ON A ROLL. Rolf Sachs is an artist born in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1955 who works across a diverse range of media, from photography, painting, sculpture and installation, to interiors and set design. In 2018 he moved to Rome where he opened a new studio in 2020. From July 17, 2025 to October 25, 2025 the Kunsthalle Schweinfurt in Germany presents Rolf Sachs: be-rühren, his most comprehensive institutional exhibition to date. The title be-rühren is a wordplay on the German verb 'to touch', and captures Sachs's focus of a deeply empathetic and sensory exploration of the human condition. "What has always moved...
2025-07-0634 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsThe Future of Travel with David Prior - Alain Elkann InterviewsBUILDING EXPERIENCES FOR LIFE STORIES. David Prior is a travel writer, editor, and the founder of Prior, a travel and media company that curates immersive journeys and offers custom travel planning. He was formerly a contributing editor at Condé Nast Traveler and Vogue Living, and his work has appeared in various publications like T: The New York Times Style Magazine and WSJ. "Australia is the most visceral example of humans' connection to the power of the land." "PRIOR has a very global reach and attracts a certain type of person." "If you want to...
2025-06-2941 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsSir John Chipman on the New Global Threats: We Are Not Ready for What's Coming - Alain Elkann InterviewsWORKING FOR GLOBAL SECURITY. Sir John Chipman KCMG is Executive Chairman of The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). As former Director-General and Chief Executive of the IISS he directed its growth globally as the world's premier institute providing facts and analysis on international security issues. He developed the IISS role as a convener of vital inter-governmental summits, conceiving and establishing two regional security institutions under IISS auspices: in the Asia-Pacific the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue hosted by Singapore, and in the Middle East the IISS Manama Dialogue hosted by Bahrain. "Europe's strategic personality will be ushered in thr...
2025-06-2247 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsPiers Secunda Turns War Zones into Art - Here's Why It Matters - Alain Elkann InterviewsPORTRAYING 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"
2025-06-1535 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsEmily Greenhouse: Leading the New York Review of Books into a New Era - Alain Elkann InterviewsSTANDING 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"
2025-06-0851 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsLuc Tuymans on the Problem with Today's Art World - Alain Elkann InterviewsA 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 i...
2025-06-0133 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsInside Italy's Most Romantic Hotels with Marie-Louise Sciò - 237 - Alain Elkann InterviewsCURATING 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....
2025-05-2535 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsLudovico Einaudi - Alain Elkann InterviewsSINGING 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 s...
2025-05-1834 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsDonatien Grau - Alain Elkann InterviewsEDITING 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."
2025-05-1126 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsFederico Campagna - Alain Elkann InterviewsSPEAKING 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."
2025-05-0459 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsJames Daunt - Alain Elkann InterviewsA 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...
2025-04-271h 01
Alain Elkann InterviewsLaurence des Cars - Alain Elkann InterviewsA 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...
2025-04-2045 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsGraydon Carter - Alain Elkann InterviewsGOOD 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."...
2025-04-1334 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsGuillaume Bonn - Alain Elkann InterviewsAFRICA: 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 ove...
2025-03-2354 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsDavid Veal - Alain Elkann InterviewsEDUCATING 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 t...
2025-03-1643 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsThomas Heatherwick - Alain Elkann InterviewsHUMANISE: 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."
2025-03-0944 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsCécile Verdier - Alain Elkann InterviewsART 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 h...
2025-03-0248 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsProfessor Sheng Lim - Alain Elkann InterviewsRESTORING 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 ul...
2025-02-2354 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsIdarica Gazzoni Frascara - Alain Elkann InterviewsBEAUTIFULLY 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." "B...
2025-02-1635 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsJonathan Reekie - Alain Elkann InterviewsA 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...
2025-02-0933 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsAlastair Buchan - Alain Elkann InterviewsWORKING 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 Ox...
2025-01-261h 02
Alain Elkann InterviewsJussi Pylkkänen - Alain Elkann InterviewsCHANGING 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 th...
2025-01-1945 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsAndrea Wong - Alain Elkann InterviewsPASSIONATE 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 s...
2025-01-1251 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsPriscilla Rattazzi - Alain Elkann InterviewsBETWEEN 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, n...
2024-12-2947 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsGiorgio Spanu - Alain Elkann InterviewsCREATING 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...
2024-12-2247 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsDr Virgilio Sacchini - Alain Elkann InterviewsBELIEVING 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...
2024-12-1547 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsMichelangelo Pistoletto - Alain Elkann InterviewsBREAKING 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 do...
2024-12-0129 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsJames Snyder - Alain Elkann InterviewsJames 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...
2024-11-2945 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsAi Weiwei - Alain Elkann InterviewsCOMPLETELY 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...
2024-11-1740 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsSir Norman Rosenthal - Alain Elkann InterviewsSTILL 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 th...
2024-11-1053 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsJoseph Rykwert - Alain Elkann InterviewsIN 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 ha...
2024-11-0340 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsLorenzo Fiaschi - Alain Elkann InterviewsCONTINUING 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 the...
2024-10-2718 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsAlexandra Mousavizadeh - Alain Elkann InterviewsINDEXING 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 o...
2024-10-1345 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsThomas Persson - Alain Elkann InterviewsAN 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."
2024-10-0632 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsErdem Moralioglu - Alain Elkann InterviewsCELEBRATING 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 E...
2024-09-2939 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsDr Amin Jaffer - Alain Elkann InterviewsEXPLORING 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...
2024-09-2240 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsGad Elmaleh - Alain Elkann InterviewsA 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.
2024-09-1539 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsKamel Mennour - Alain Elkann InterviewsWRITING 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."
2024-08-2539 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsLeonardo Ferragamo - Alain Elkann InterviewsREINTERPRETING 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 h...
2024-08-1141 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsJeremy King - Alain Elkann InterviewsA 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 e...
2024-08-0455 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsAmanda Levete - Alain Elkann InterviewsAN 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."
2024-07-2837 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsJudy Chicago - Alain Elkann InterviewsA 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 inst...
2024-07-2139 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsCharles Zana - Alain Elkann InterviewsCLASSIC 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." "Pe...
2024-07-1433 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsYinka Shonibare - Alain Elkann InterviewsTHE ARTIST IS UTOPIC. Yinka Shonibare CBE RA is a celebrated British artist whose work explores cultural identity, colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. His show Suspended States is at Serpentine from 12th April until September 1st 2024 and is his first London solo exhibition in over 20 years. "Artists are always utopian in their thinking, but then somehow we always fail this utopia, because it's never actually realised." "I was asking myself if can I make a work of art that's really about nothing. Literally about wind." "I don't want to make...
2024-07-0736 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsJennifer Clement - Alain Elkann InterviewsTHE 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 fra...
2024-06-3039 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsMinsuk Cho - Alain Elkann InterviewsENJOYING 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...
2024-06-2331 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsPaul Theroux - Alain Elkann InterviewsWRITERS 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...
2024-06-1654 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsRobert Verkaik - Alain Elkann InterviewsAGENT 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 respons...
2024-06-0944 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsVera Michalski-Hoffmann - Alain Elkann InterviewsFOR 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 p...
2024-05-2638 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsSergio Roger - Alain Elkann InterviewsSCULPTING 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 t...
2024-05-1930 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsAndrea Califano - Alain Elkann InterviewsEDUCATING 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...
2024-05-1232 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsVictoria Siddall - Alain Elkann InterviewsART, 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."
2024-05-0543 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsGilles Kepel - Alain Elkann InterviewsBUILDING 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 ne...
2024-04-2853 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsGraham Steele - Alain Elkann InterviewsGOING 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" "...
2024-04-2146 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsJoel Mesler - 187 - Alain Elkann InterviewsHERE 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....
2024-04-1441 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsSteve McQueen - Alain Elkann InterviewsWHO 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...
2024-04-0725 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsPauline Bebe - Alain Elkann InterviewsTHE 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 recl...
2024-03-3150 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsAmbrogio Beccaria - Alain Elkann InterviewsPOWER 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 goin...
2024-03-2455 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsHans Ulrich Obrist - Alain Elkann InterviewsI 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.
2024-03-1744 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsInigo Lambertini - Alain Elkann InterviewsTRADITION 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.
2024-03-1041 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsTim Marlow - Alain Elkann InterviewsDESIGN 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.
2024-03-0343 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsJasper Conran - Alain Elkann InterviewsTASTEMAKER 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 L...
2024-02-1841 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsFanny Minesi - 179 - Alain Elkann InterviewsA 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 deve...
2024-02-0436 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsEdward St Aubyn - Alain Elkann InterviewsDESIRE 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...
2024-01-2825 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsRob Ashford - Alain Elkann InterviewsAT 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."
2024-01-2145 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsEdward Carey - 176 - Alain Elkann InterviewsSTRIKINGLY 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.
2024-01-1438 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsCostis Maglaras - Alain Elkann Interviews 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 In...
2023-12-2534 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsSantiago Calatrava - Alain Elkann InterviewsART 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.
2023-11-1953 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsFrancine Lacqua - 167 - Alain Elkann InterviewsCHRONICLING 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.
2023-10-2239 min
Alain Elkann InterviewsDambisa Moyo - 160 - Alain Elkann InterviewsECONOMIC 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.
2023-08-2751 min