Alain Elkann Interviews

A PASSION FOR GREECE. Paolo Colombo is an Italian artist and poet. Born in 1949 in Turin, Italy, he lives and works in Athens, Greece. He was a curator between 1986 and 2017 in Philadelphia, in Geneva, in Istanbul, in Torino and in Athens. His works of visual poetry are exhibited widely.

"Greece is my world"

"Language is very connected with painting, regardless whether I make a painting of a poem or not."

"I love the language, I love the music, I love the dances"

https://www.alainelkanninterviews.com/paolo-colombo-3/

COMBINING ARCHITECTURE AND INTERIOR DESIGN. Nathalie Droulers and her twin sister Virginie were born in Milan in 1973. Nathalie graduated in Architecture from the Polytechnic University in Milan in 1997. She worked in New York as a Creative Director in product design development and in 2000 returned to Italy, where she collaborated with the Milan-based Dstudio as a Project Manager. In 2005 she founded Nathalie Droulers Studio, developing residential and commercial projects internationally. Her sister Virginie graduated in Graphic Design from Parsons School of Design in New York in 1999. She worked in New York from 1997 to 2000, and when she returned to Italy she founded Kv Design, a graphic and packaging firm. In 2007, Nathalie and Virginie founded Droulers Architecture together, with the aim of creating an international studio developing residential, commercial and leisure projects, now also specialised in architecture and interior design for luxury yachts. Droulers collaborates with a team of specialised and skilled professionals in a concerted effort to achieve these ambitious goals.

"Naturally and luckily, we gradually moved into our respective roles."

"One of our most important qualities is our ability to listen to what our clients want."

"Getting the new generation on board is probably the biggest success we could achieve."

https://www.alainelkanninterviews.com/nathalie-droulers/

COVID REFLECTIONS. Jay McInerney is a well-known American writer, one of the most gifted of his generation. Novelist, screenwriter and wine connoisseur, McInerney recently published See You on the Other Side, the eagerly anticipated final volume of his stunningly accomplished and profoundly affecting fictional tetralogy: Brightness Falls, The Good Life, and Bright Precious Days.

"The stories that I'm interested in ultimately are the personal ones."

"The people who come here are ambitious and energetic and they come here because it's the biggest stage in America that there is."

"There is something special about the voices of people in their 20s, which we need."

https://www.alainelkanninterviews.com/jay-mcinerney/

LUMINARY IN ART CRITIQUE. Andrew Graham-Dixon is a leading art critic and presenter of arts television in the English-speaking world. With a long history of public service in the field of the visual arts he has won numerous awards for writing and broadcasting. His book "Caravaggio A Life Sacred and Profane" is a Sunday Times Bestseller, and his recent title "Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found" paints a dramatically new picture of Vermeer. Graham-Dixon reveals many of the painter's hitherto unknown friendships, as well as his previously undetected allegiance to a radical movement driven underground by persecution.

"Vermeer is the first really great religious painter of introspective post-Reformation religion."

"The Dutch Golden Age is probably the worst name ever given to a period in history by historians. It's not a golden age. It's an age of blood."

"I'm a profound Collegiant. There's not many of us now. I believe in universal tolerance."

https://www.alainelkanninterviews.com/andrew-graham-dixon/

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/

CHAMPION OF ITALIAN OPERA. Alvise Casellati was born in Padua, Italy, from a Venetian musical family with important ties to the top classical music scene in the 19th and 20th centuries. He is currently serving as Artistic Director of the Teatro Massimo of Palermo, one of the most prestigious opera and dance theaters in Italy and in the world. He is the Founder and Music Director of Opera Italiana is in the Air (OIA), created in 2017 to bring superstar singers and the young talents in iconic locations in the air such as Central Park, New York, to give everyone the opportunity to appreciate Italian Opera.

"The locals look at Teatro Massimo as a myth, as the centre of cultural gravity in Palermo."

"We wanted to give young people and people who could not afford to go to the Met Opera the opportunity to fall in love with Italian opera"

"What I adore about this theater is the investment in the young generation."

https://www.alainelkanninterviews.com/alvise-casellati-2/

DEFENDER OF JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS. Bianca Jagger is the Founder, President, and Chief Executive of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation (BJHRF), a UK-based human rights organisation that defends human rights and civil liberties, promotes international justice, campaigns to end violence against women and girls, addresses the threat of climate change, and advocates for the rights of Indigenous peoples and future generations.

"Being born in Nicaragua shaped my understanding of repression, injustice and inequality."

"I have dedicated my life to the defence of peace, justice and human rights."

"At the end of the day, what matters is not fame or public perception. What matters is whether you stood on the side of justice when it was needed."

https://www.alainelkanninterviews.com/bianca-jagger-2/

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/

PIONEER OF BAROQUE SCULPTURE. Jennifer Montagu LVO CBE is a highly regarded British art historian whose emphasis is in the study of Italian Baroque sculpture. A daughter of Ewen Montagu, a British lawyer, writer and Naval intelligence officer, and granddaughter of painter Solomon J. Solomon RA, she studied under Sir Ernst Gombrich at the Warburg Institute, London where she received her PhD degree. Montagu lectured in History of Art at Reading University 1958–64, then was assistant Curator 1964–71, and Curator 1971–91, of the Photographic Collection at the Warburg Institute. She was Slade Professor of Fine Art and fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge 1980–81, Andrew W. Mellon Lecturer at the National Gallery of Art, Washington in 1991, and Invited Professor at the College de France, Paris in 1994. She was a trustee of the Wallace Collection 1989–2001 and of the British Museum 1994–2001. In 1990 Montagu delivered the annual A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts at the National Gallery of Art. She is an honorary fellow of her alma mater, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and of the Warburg Institute. She has been honoured in France as a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur and a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and in Italy as an Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. Her books are Bronzes 1963, Alessandro Algardi 1985, Roman Baroque Sculpture – The Industry of Art 1989, The Expression of the Passions 1994, and Gold, Silver and Bronze: Metal Sculpture of the Roman Baroque 1996. Her latest book, on the sculptor Giovanni Battista Maini, was published in 2025.

"I was brought up being rather anti-Baroque; and then I got interested in Le Brun and the 17th century."

"The basic problem, of course, is who painted it and why and when, but there are all sorts of other more interesting questions you can ask about it."

"Sometimes there's a connection, something about the painting which grabs you. The hairs on the back of your neck rise up, as they say, and there isn't any particular explanation."

https://www.alainelkanninterviews.com/jennifer-montagu

DAY TO DAY BRILLIANCE. ANTONIO CITTERIO is an Italian architect, furniture and industrial designer. Today his cross-disciplinary practice for architecture and interior design is known as "ACPV ARCHITECTS Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel". The firm works internationally, developing projects on all scales in collaboration with a network of specialist consultants. In both 1987 and 1994, Antonio Citterio was awarded the Compasso d'Oro ("Golden Compass") prize, the world's oldest and most prestigious industrial design award. In 2008 the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce of London awarded him the title of "Honorary Royal Designer for Industry".

"Headquarters is not a speculation building, it's also part of the image."

"When you build something now, you really have to think about what will happen in the next 30 years."

"Nowadays, the vision is for an office chair that is self-adaptive."

https://www.alainelkanninterviews.com/antonio-citterio