Alain Elkann Interviews

BELIEVING 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...

BREAKING 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,...

James  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 Jewis...

COMPLETELY 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 We...

STILL 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 Ist...

IN MEMORIAM.  Joseph Rykwert CBE  died on October 18 th  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...

CONTINUING 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...

INDEXING 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 c...

AN 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 fa...

CELEBRATING 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...

EXPLORING 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...

A 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...

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 someth...

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 h...

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...

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...

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 Chic...

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 Cam...

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 12 th  April until September 1 st 2024 and is his first London solo exhibition in over 20 years. "Artists are always utopian in their thinking, but th...

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 Internati...

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 H...

WRITERS 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...

AGENT 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...

FOR 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...

SCULPTING 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 civili...