Alain Elkann Interviews

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 a

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.“

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 Raj police officer in colonial Burma that transformed him into the anticolonial writer, George Orwell. "A novelist speculates, and that's my role in life: to invent, to imagine, and to create the person" "The writer is defining himself or herself with each book" "Most of my books are about a person, usually a man somewhat like myself, that needs to solve a problem"

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 is a non-practising barrister and lives in Surrey. His most recent book is The Traitor of Arnhem: WWII’s Greatest Betrayal and the Moment That Changed History Forever. "Blunt himself was responsible for editing the MI5 monthly briefings which were handed to Churchill, so was in a very good position to bury everything that Churchill may or may not have wanted to know about Agent Josephine and Arnhem." "The arguments that Blunt was making about his own treachery are the same ones that some of the British jihadis were using to justify their own actions." "Things haven't changed as far as the Russian leaders view the world."

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 Poland. Jan passed away in 2002, and Vera created the Jan Michalski Foundation for Writing and Literature to perpetuate their shared commitment to the written word, to support literary creation and encourage reading. Vera Michalski-Hoffmann has received Polish and French prizes and distinctions, an honorary doctorate from the University of Lausanne, and is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. “We try to host as many events as possible that bring people back to the written word.” “Unless properly controlled, the use of AI in the creative process could mean a great impoverishment of the world.” “For the Gulag evening most of

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 civilizations, especially the Graeco-Roman era and its modern counterparts. “I’m passionate and obsessed with these kinds of fabrics” “Art is the laboratory where things are taken out of the world and seen and put under the light” “In my daily life, I don’t want distraction.”

EDUCATING THE IMMUNE RESPONSE. Andrea Califano is President of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York. He is the Clyde and Helen Wu Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and also holds appointments in the Departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, Biomedical Informatics, and Medicine. The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network of scientific institutes is supported by and partners with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to help researchers cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of the century. “We are trying to take over where natural evolution has stopped.” “We need to learn more about mechanisms that we can harness to generate universal therapies.” “For Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, we are certainly hoping to accomplish being able to detect them at a stage where they are still treatable.”

ART, SUSTAINABILITY & FUNDRAISING. Victoria Siddall is a non-executive Director of Frieze, a co-founder and trustee of Gallery Climate Coalition, and the Founding Director of Murmur, a new initiative that enables the worlds of visual arts and music to play their part in combatting the climate crisis. A strategic advisor to museums and businesses on art, sustainability and fundraising, Siddall is Chair of the board of trustees of Studio Voltaire, Cultural Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery and a trustee of the Ampersand Foundation UK. “Frieze Masters was the first fair that I launched and ran as Director.” “The aim is to unite the art and music industries and channel funds into the most impactful climate initiatives.” “Artists are really at the heart of the whole art ecosystem, so the investment there is critical.”

BUILDING A GLOBAL NARRATIVE. Gilles Kepel is a university professor, political scientist and Arabist. His books include Terror in France: The Rise of Jihad in the West, Away from Chaos: The Middle East and the challenge to the West, and lately Prophète en son pays (Editions de l’Observatoire: 2023) and Holocaustes (Plon: 2024). He has published 25 books, which have been translated into some 20 languages. “The Global South is a construct. I believe it won’t stand together.” “The very notion of Holocaust as meaning the Jewish Holocaust by the Nazis is being put into question by those new leaders of the Global South.” “I believe that academic knowledge has a global outreach and people are not prisoners of opinion leaders.”

GOING THROUGH STAGES. Graham Steele is a private art dealer, adviser and collector who lives between Los Angeles and Brazil with his husband, Ulysses de Santi, and their young daughter, Asher. Born in rural Vermont, Steele attended Georgetown University, Washington D.C., followed by UCL in London, from which he graduated with his MA in 2004. He started his career at Sotheby’s, joined White Cube in 2006, and is a former partner at the eminent contemporary and modern art gallery Hauser & Wirth, a role which he left in 2020 to start his own business. “Everything starts with education” “Collecting is incredibly personality driven” “I am in the business of helping people find things that are relevant to their lives“

HERE TO SERVE. Joel Mesler is an artist whose career in the art world started as an art dealer and gallerist.  A Master of Fine Arts graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, Mesler worked for almost two decades as an art dealer in Los Angeles and New York City, painting on and off while promoting artists Henry Taylor and Rashid Johnson early in their careers. In 2017, Mesler moved to Sag Harbor, where he owns Rental Gallery. He continues to paint, influenced by pop culture and nature as well as his own history of addiction and his Jewish heritage. "Survival is our badge of honour" "I'll never stop painting rabbis" "There's nothing to hide"

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.”

THE DIFFICULT HAPPINESS OF BEING JEWISH. Pauline Bebe is the rabbi of Communauté Juive Libérale (CJL), a Progressive Jewish congregation in Paris, where she was the first female rabbi to lead a synagogue. “The philosophy of Judaism is to maintain hope in times of difficulties, and we have to fight for our ideals of democracy, of humanity, of respect for every living person.” “A lot of Jews feel that they are not understood; that whatever they say or do will not be understood, but they also think that more than ever they have to reclaim their Judaism.” “I hope for peace. I hope for dialogue with everyone.”

POWER IS NOTHING WITHOUT CONTROL. Ambrogio Beccaria was born in Milan in 1991 and gained a degree in nautical engineering. In 2019 he became the first Italian in the history of sailing to win the Mini-Transat – the historic solo competition that crosses the Atlantic Ocean on board 6.5 metre boats. Since 2022 Beccaria has been reaching important goals on his boat “Alla Grande – Pirelli” and in 2023 won the Transat Jacques Vabre, the most important race of the year. “I love everything about sailing.” “You need to be a sailor. You need to understand your boat, to feel what is going on, to be connected with the sea.” “Once you won one race then you have to win the next.”

I WANT TO CREATE JUNCTIONS. Hans Ulrich Obrist is a Swiss art curator, critic, and art historian who lives and works in London where he is Artistic Director at Serpentine. Obrist is the author of The Interview Project, an extensive ongoing project of interviews, and is also co-editor of the Cahiers d'Art review.

TRADITION AND INNOVATION. Inigo Lambertini was appointed Ambassador of Italy to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by the Italian Government in February 2022 and arrived in London in October, a few weeks after the death of Queen Elizabeth. Neapolitan by birth, he entered the Italian diplomatic service in 1987, and his career includes recent duties as Chief of Diplomatic Protocol in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome, after New York.

DESIGN OF THE PRESENT INTO THE FUTURE. Tim Marlow OBE is the Chief Executive and Director of The Design Museum which since 2016 is housed in the former premises of the Commonwealth Institute in Kensington, London. Marlow is a curator, writer and broadcaster who has worked with some of the most influential contemporary artists to deliver wide-ranging and popular programmes. He sits on the Board of Trustees for the Imperial War Museum, Sadler’s Wells, Art on the Underground Advisory Board and Cultureshock Media.