Alain Elkann Interviews - Intesa Sanpaolo On Air

Anne Pasternak is the Shelby White and Leon Levy Director of the Brooklyn Museum, one of the oldest and largest fine arts institutions in America. Pasternak is devoted to engaging broad audiences through the power of art, and she is a staunch advocate for the civic and democratic roles that cultural and educational institutions can play.

Michelangelo Pistoletto is one of the most influential contemporary artists of his generation and a leading proponent of the Arte Povera movement. In 1998 he founded “Cittadellarte”, an art and creativity laboratory in a disused textile mill on the Cervo River in Biella, Italy. In his new book, “La Formula della Creazione”, published by Cittadellarte Edizioni in December 2022, Pistoletto recounts...

Salvatore Settis was for years Director of the notorious Getty Center in LA, then he became Director of the prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. His incredible career brought him to curate different exhibitions around the world; visitors can admire his latest work in Fondazione Prada called “Recycling Beauty”. 

John Currin is a New York based artist whose paintings portray highly charged social and sexual taboos. With inspirations as diverse as Old Master portraits, pinups, pornography, and B movies, his painting is the search for the point at which the beautiful and the grotesque are held in perfect balance.

David Dawson studied painting at the Chelsea School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art. Soon after completing his MA in 1991 he met Lucian Freud, becoming his studio assistant and friend for 20 years until Freud died in 2011. He was also the model for several paintings and documented the artist’s work in photographs. He is Director of the Lucian Freud Archive and until January 2023 the Na...

Kerry Kennedy is President of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, founded in 1968 after the assassination of her father. She has devoted more than 40 years to the pursuit of equal justice, the promotion and protection of basic rights, and the preservation of the rule of law.

Harumi Klossowska de Rola is an artist and designer who creates powerful sculptural works and delicately crafted luxury jewellery inspired by the flora and fauna of the natural world. Her animals are totemic entities, capable of creating a bridge between nature and man, the visible and the invisible, the spirit and the earth. Harumi is the daughter of the painter Balthus and the Japanese artist Se...

Jhumpa Lahiri was born in London to Bengali parents. She grew up in the United States, taught at Princeton University, and currently teaches at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is the author, in English, of Interpreter of Maladies (winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction,) The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland, which was a finalist for the Man Booker prize and the National Bo...

Caroline Moorehead is a bestselling and prize-winner author, and the biographer of Bertrand Russell, Freya Stark, Iris Origo, Madame de la Tour du Pin and Martha Gellhorn. Her recent books – a quartet focused on resistance to dictatorship, particularly in Italy – were shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Orwell Prize and the Costa Biography Award. She lives in London.

Paola D’Agostino is Director of the Musei del Bargello, in Florence, Italy, a new museum group comprising the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, the Medici Chapel, the Church and Museum of Orsanmichele, Palazzo Davanzati and Casa Martelli. This five museum consortium was put together after the reform of Italian museums in 2014 by Dario Franceschini, the Italian Minister of Cultural Heritage.

Roberto Cicutto is President of La Biennale di Venezia, overseeing the city’s prestigious art and architecture biennials as well as the film, dance, theatre and music festivals.

The London based photographer, filmmaker and author Mary McCartney’s photographs have been shown at leading international institutions and galleries. Mary’s editorial work has featured in GQ, Vogue, and the Sunday Times, and she has been a guest editor of National Geographic Magazine. Mary was selected to take the official photograph of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2015 when she became the lo...

The writer Marina Valensise was recently appointed CEO of the Italian National Institute of Ancient Drama (Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico, INDA) which manages the ancient Greek Theatre of Syracuse. Valensise was formerly head of the Special Secretariat of the Italian Minister for Cultural Heritage, Alberto Ronchey, and from 2012 to 2016 she was Director of the Italian Institute of Culture in...

British menswear designer Kim Jones is a graduate of Central St Martins. He has worked with high profile fashion brands including Dunhill, Louis Vuitton, Mulberry, Alexander McQueen, Hugo Boss, Iceberg, Topman and Uniqlo. In 2018 he joined Dior Men as artistic director, and in 2020 was also named artistic director at Fendi, a position that was previously held by Karl Lagerfeld.

Edmund de Waal is an artist who has exhibited in museums around the world. His bestselling memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes, has won many prizes and has been translated into 29 languages. His new book is Letters to Camondo.

Donatien Grau is an editor, scholar and museum executive. He was head of contemporary programs at Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and recently moved to the Louvre, where his continuing mission is to oversee the implementation of contemporary projects that echo the museum’s collections. He was in the list of Apollo Magazine‘s “Forty under Forty” in 2014, and Donatien’s scholarly publications include taking a...

Andy Harries produces television series including The Crown and Outlander. He is chief executive and co-founder of LEFT BANK Pictures, a multi-award winning independent production company launched in 2007 to make high-end film and television for the international market. He was recently appointed Chair of Film London Executive Taskforce, which works to sustain, promote and develop London as a glob...

Marlene Taschen is the CEO of the international publishing house TASCHEN that was founded by her father Benedikt, who is also a collector of contemporary art. TASCHEN specialize in illustrated publications on a range of themes including art, architecture, design, film, photography, pop culture, and lifestyle.

Jean Todt is a French motor racing executive and former rally co-driver. He was Peugeot Talbot Sport’s director and then Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 team principal, before being appointed CEO of Ferrari from 2004 to 2008. From 2009 to 2021 he served as the 9th president of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA). UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon appointed Todt as the United Nations’ Spe...

Dr Virgilio Sacchini is a professor of surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the University of Milan.

Anthony McCarten is a novelist, playwright, journalist, television writer and filmmaker, best known for writing The Theory of Everything, Darkest Hour, Bohemian Rhapsody and The Two Popes. His play The Collaboration, with Paul Bettany and Jeremy Pope in the leading roles, brings the artists Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat together.