Alain Elkann Interviews

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."

TOWARDS 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 incredible collectors to build their collections over the last decades."

ANTHROPOLOGY 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 art, of heritage, is its capacity to regenerate itself through centuries and time and cultures." "The icons of the museum are promoted by social media, and this is both an opportunity and a problem." "We have to be a universal museum in terms of audiences. That makes the work we do much more complicated."

REVIVIFYING ROME. Thomas Clement Salomon is the director of Rome's Baroque Palazzo Barberini and the Galleria Corsini since January 2024. Palazzo Barberini is home to the National Gallery of Ancient Art, with a collection of paintings by Caravaggio and other Caravaggesque painters that now includes the very recently acquired Caravaggio Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini. Thomas studied art history and archaeological heritage protection law, for many years he helped organize major exhibitions at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome and the Palazzo Reale in Milan, worked at the Galleria Borghese with the Director Francesca Cappelletti, and was Scientific Director of MondoMostre Skira, the world's leading producer of exhibitions. He has travelled extensively between the United States and Europe, managing the loans for dozens of important exhibitions. "No one knew where this Caravaggio was or who the owners were." "Bernini: Now you have to become the new Michelangelo." "Poussin is a great painter of course but Velázquez is enormous." https://www.alainelkanninterviews.com/thomas-clement-salomon/

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."

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.

THE JOB OF THE ARTIST IS TO MAKE TIME STAND STILL says Tracey Emin the renowned British artist as she contemplates her life, saying "When I am old, even if I can't walk I still want to be able to work. Everything I have and I do is towards my art. Art is like a wall. You stop and it talks to you. Art is not competing with technology, machinery, spaceships. Art is something else. Art comes from another place. Art never left me. It looks after me financially as well as spiritually, socially, but most importantly I have to remain morally secure."

TAKING FASHION SERIOUSLY. Valerie Steele is an American fashion historian and the Director and Chief Curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City. A pioneer in the field of fashion studies, she has been instrumental in establishing fashion as a legitimate intellectual and cultural subject. "Both the allure and the problematic aspects of fashion attracted and interested me." "Although most people don't get any exercise, they want to look sporty." "The body is central to fashion." https://www.alainelkanninterviews.com/valerie-steele/

PASSION 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 Manhattan. His latest book Room on the Sea was recently published by Farrar Straus & Giroux. "My entire life has been one of displacement" "I've always been a very hesitant lover" "I am not interested in the towels and the sheets."

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.