Alain Elkann Interviews

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 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 literal abstractions, but I can get to the sublime through reality."

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."