Hilary Weston, at home in Windsor

As co-founder of Windsor, a private residential community along Florida’s Treasure Coast, Hilary Weston is also Creative Director of The Gallery at Windsor. The serial philanthropist and scion of the retail family talks to LUX’s Candice Tucker about contemporary art, community, creatives – and why she pays no attention to the art market

LUX: What do you hope to achieve in art?
Hilary Weston: Art has been part of the fabric of Windsor since the community’s early days [Weston founded Windsor with her husband Galen, who died in 2021]. Over the years, The Gallery at Windsor has developed a reputation for staging exhibitions that present the very best of contemporary art. This latest exhibition by Sir Tony Cragg continues our desire to present the talents of some of the most important contemporary artists of our time.

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LUX: How is the art-collecting community growing in Windsor?
HW: The Gallery at Windsor is at the heart of Windsor’s Cultural Art Programme, which encourages all Windsor members to participate in the arts, whether it be contemporary art in the gallery, performing arts, film or literature. I hope the success of the gallery has contributed to the culture of collecting at Windsor. Many pieces from the gallery’s exhibition series have remained at Windsor in our members’ homes. We are just over a two-hour drive north of Miami – a global capital for contemporary art, and the energy of Miami can be felt in Windsor, especially around Art Basel Miami Beach.

The Gallery at Windsor was founded in 2002, as an independent art space

LUX: How did you create your art initiative?
HW: We staged our first exhibition in March 2002. It was a photography show called “The Beach”, curated by Bettina von Hase. It explored the relationship between beach and society through the eyes of a range of artists including Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Robert Capa, David Hockney and John Baldessari. Over the years we have shown Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Ed Ruscha, Bruce Weber, Peter Doig, Alex Katz, Per Kirkeby and Christopher Le Brun. In 2011, the gallery began a three-year collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery to realise exhibitions by Beatriz Milhazes, Gert and Uwe Tobias and Jasper Johns. I was particularly proud of our three-year collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts, from 2018 to 2020. We showed Grayson Perry, Sir Michael Craig-Martin and the wonderful Rose Wylie. The sight of Grayson in his fabulous outfits electrified the community. He brought his family and they stayed a week. Everyone had such fun getting to know them.

LUX: How involved is your family in Windsor?
HW: While I am the Creative Director of The Gallery at Windsor, it was my daughter Alannah who founded it in 2002. I admire her creativity hugely. When a growing family and business commitments began to take up more of her time, I took over the reins of the gallery. As Principal of Windsor, Alannah is leading the final phase of its development – a 47-acre swath of land adjacent to the country’s first protected wildlife preserve and the banks of the Indian River Lagoon. The North Village will include 40 residences, wellness amenities, a heightened attention to sustainability and an outdoor art programme.

Christopher Le Brun, Grayson Perry, Hilary Weston, Tim Marlow, Philippa Perry and Galen Weston, in front of Grayson Perry’s Comfort Blanket, at The Gallery at Windsor, 2018

LUX: Name five people you think are having the greatest impact on the art world right now.
HW: There are so many wonderful people creating art and leading the art world. Working with two world-renowned art institutions, the RA and Whitechapel Gallery, and art-world leaders such as Sir Christopher Le Brun and Iwona Blazwick has enabled us to welcome incredible artists, some in the earlier stages of their career, such as Ed Ruscha and Beatriz Milhazes, who went on to enjoy amazing success.

LUX: What effect do you think bringing major artists to Windsor has on the community?
HW: We believe culture is a crucial part of the spirit of a community, so it is natural that art and artists have been part of the ethos of Windsor. The gallery extends past our gates to the local Vero Beach community. We open for public docent-led tours two days a week. The tours are complementary and we accept donations for our charitable foundation that supports local arts education. We have strong ties with the area’s arts organisations and hold an ongoing roster of collaborative cultural events with them. We are proud and privileged to be able to introduce an artist of Sir Tony’s calibre to our membership and the community at large.

Part of Windsor’s fine arts programming has included collaborations with organisations such as the Whitechapel Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts in London

LUX: Which new artists do you admire now?
HW: There will always be brilliant artists at any age who are under-recognised and then something just happens. The gallery here is known for showing some of the art world’s greats, but we aim to celebrate artists at whatever point of their careers. In the past few years, I have become acquainted with a young Irish abstract painter named Jack Coulter. His layered works are inspired by music. I visited his exhibition at Sotheby’s this past fall and a piece inspired by an album by the Anglo-Irish punk band The Pogues caught my eye. I think Jack is someone to watch.

LUX: The art-market peak has been called many times over the past ten years. Will it peak?
HW: I don’t follow the art market too closely. Markets go up and go down. I believe art is important to our lives and the market will do what it does.

LUX: What differences have you noticed in the new generation of collectors?
HW: My feeling is they are open to a more diverse range of practices. There are some interesting things being done in digital and performance art. It’s an area we’d like to explore more.

Views from The Gallery at Windsor’s major 2023 exhibition, “Tony Cragg: Sculptures and Works on Paper”

LUX: What’s next for art at Windsor?
HW: As a new generation joins the community, my hope is that art continues to be an important part of life at Windsor. We have many members who found Windsor through its art programme. With our planned outdoor art island, it is exciting to wonder what is in store for the future here.

Read more: Sophie Neuendorf: The best art shows this season

LUX: Where will the next US art hot spot be?
HW: Toronto is not in the US, but it is one base of the Weston family, and I’m proud and impressed by its metropolitan and welcoming outlook. With the success of the Toronto International Film Festival and new art fairs, it is an art hot spot that should not be overlooked.

LUX: What would you change in the art world?
HW: Wouldn’t it be wonderful for the focus of discussions to return to art and artists, rather than market and prices?

Find out more: windsorflorida.com

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

Wendy Schmidt and the R/V Falkor (too)

Philanthropist and investor Wendy Schmidt founded the Schmidt Ocean Institute in 2009 with her husband, Eric, former CEO of Google. Here, Wendy tells Trudy Ross about their new research vessel, R/V Falkor (too) and the importance of expanding scientific knowledge of the oceans’ unplumbed depths

LUX: Can you share the inspiration behind founding the Schmidt Ocean Institute and your vision for advancing oceanographic research and exploration?
Wendy Schmidt: My husband, Eric, and I began Schmidt Ocean Institute in 2009 after I learned to sail and to scuba dive and he went out and found an existing hull in a retired German fisheries vessel. Combining Eric’s interest in advancing engineering and technology and my growing passion for Ocean science and communications, we repurposed the old steel hull into the construction of a state-of-the-art oceanographic research vessel, launching R/V Falkor in 2012.

We had two ideas: first, as philanthropists, to provide ship time, which is in short supply, for marine researchers at no cost. Second, in exchange, we ask scientists and researchers to make their collected data publicly available for the broader research community as soon as possible, so we might collectively accelerate the pace of oceanographic research at a critical time in the life of the Ocean and our planet.

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LUX: The Institute has recently launched a new research vessel, Falkor (too) to embark on research expeditions and expand the capacity for ocean research. What is special about the ship and how has it been specifically tailored to advance marine science?
WS: Like our first research vessel, R/V Falkor (too) is built on a repurposed hull. The original ship was a service vessel built in 2011 to travel back and forth from Ocean platforms, including wind turbines. It came with an excellent seakeeping ability, which is a wonderful feature when you have robots diving beneath the ship.

We were able to successfully convert the ship for marine research at a shipyard in Vigo, Spain, during a remarkable 18-month period in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic, during which we faced workers absent due to illness, local work strikes, broken supply chains that delayed needed materials and technical parts.

Nevertheless, R/V Falkor (too) sailed from Vigo in March, 2023, on her first shakedown cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea. Falkor (too) is 50 percent larger than Falkor. Its technology expands the capability of Falkor with space for more scientists, offering eight laboratories, two moonpools in the centre of the vessel, a 150-foot-tall crane that can rearrange 20 shipping-size containers to create custom labs on a 10,000-square-foot deck. Modular space on the ship is designed to accommodate concurrent science projects as well as artists, who come along on most expeditions, to translate discoveries and scientific processes into art.

Wendy Schmidt inside the Falkor (too) control room

LUX: Can you speak more about the inaugural expedition of Falkor (too) in the Mid Atlantic Ridge and your findings there?
WS: A multidisciplinary team from 11 scientific institutions joined Falkor (too) for a 40-day inaugural expedition to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Scientists were searching for new hydrothermal vent fields–and found three of them–the first discovery of active hydrothermal vents on this section of the ridge since 1980. The vents occur when magma from the Earth’s core comes into contact with sea water, creating a chemical reaction that can look spectacular. “Black smokers” are what they look like, and they can spew upwards hundreds of feet. Vent fields were measured at up to 350 degrees Celsius.

These systems are important to locate and to understand because they are rich with minerals–sulfide deposits–that are one of the targets of deep sea mining. Scientists working aboard Falkor (too) discovered the new hydrothermal sites supported active ecosystems, teeming with rich varieties of marine life. Now that the expedition is concluded, scientists will study the samples they have of rocks, hydrothermal fluids, microbes and animals found on these vents.

LUX: Which were the most significant scientific discoveries or breakthroughs made aboard the The Schmidt Ocean Institute’s previous vessel, R/V Falkor?
WS: During the decade the ship was in service, scientists working aboard discovered more than 50 new marine species and underwater formations and mapped more than half a million miles of the sea floor in high resolution.

Notable discoveries include the world’s longest known sea creature, a 150-foot-long siphonophore, and a coral reef standing taller than New York’s Empire State Building alongside The Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Our underwater cameras also caught rare footage of the ram’s horn squid, the glass octopus, and a 1 cm pygmy seahorse.

Rare sighting of a glass octopus, a nearly transparent species whose only visible features are its optic nerve, eyeballs and digestive tract, as seen from the R/V Falkor

LUX: How important is the role of new technology as a facet of ocean research?
WS: New technology is essential for advancing our understanding of the ocean. Imagine exploration in Space that didn’t take advantage of ever newer systems to enhance the missions we are able to accomplish. We know so little about the ocean and most of it is still unexplored.

Schmidt Ocean supports the development and use of transformative technologies that can scale our efforts at a time when government funding for early research and development in applied sciences won’t make it happen. We support new technologies for data collection and analysis, and others, like autonomous robotics, augmented and virtual reality, machine learning, and artificial intelligence that have the promise to rapidly advance our understanding of ocean systems everywhere we go. Our Executive Director, Jyotika Virmani, chairs the UN Ocean Decade Technology Group.

LUX: You have said before that: “We can’t take care of something that we don’t understand”. Can you speak on existing accessibility barriers relating to the world of ocean research?
WS: The ocean has mostly been inaccessible to most humans throughout our history. It’s dark, cold, the pressures will crush you. We can’t breathe in the ocean without special equipment. Sea water is corrosive, and the ocean is filled with creatures that can sting you, bite you–even completely consume you. How do we reconcile that reality with the other side of the truth: the ocean is the source of all life, provides half the oxygen we breathe, controls the temperate climate that allowed civilization to advance in the places humans settled over the past 20,000 years? All that, and we have barely scratched the surface of other ocean benefits for humanity–the products it produces to enhance our well being,  supplying us with protein, and even curing disease. And yet, through my entire lifetime, the ocean has been under attack—from chemical runoff and pollution, discarded fishing gear, overfishing practices, ocean noise from the 55,000 container ships that cross our seas every day, and the constant pumping of excess C02 into our atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.

The people we want to engage in our outreach probably don’t live anywhere near the Ocean. They may see it from aeroplanes or ferry boats, and think it doesn’t matter to them. I didn’t know it mattered to me until I started to really look at it. Now I can’t stop looking.

Newly Discovered Hydrothermal Vent Field on Puy des Folles Seamount in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge

LUX: In addition to oceanography, your philanthropic endeavours also cover other areas, from AI to renewable energy. Can you tell us how you go about identifying areas to focus your support across a diverse range of fields?
WS: We are living in a revolutionary time in human history, and, unlike people alive during earlier times of revolution, we actually know it. We experience it every day and for many people, the world has become a confusing place that changes too quickly for us to understand.

We have a corresponding opportunity in such a world to use the emerging tools of technology to rethink the human relationship to the finite resources of the Earth: our soils, atmosphere, fresh water and energy sources, and, of course, the largest living space on the planet, where 50-80 percent of all life resides–the ocean. Our planetary systems are deeply interconnected —in ways we are only beginning to understand because our technologies allow us, for the first time, to observe and to measure what was either hard to encounter or simply invisible to us.

With today’s growing suite of technologies that help us to see, analyse, understand and encounter what is here, and to incorporate Indigenous wisdom that supported human life on Earth for millennia, we have the chance to pursue human activity as a part of the living systems of the world. We work to help build a world with energy and food systems that are regenerative by design, accessible for everyone, and that respect human rights and dignity, even as we bring AI and machine learning into our work in ways that can amplify human potential everywhere.

An aerial image of R/V Falkor (too)

LUX: In your view, how crucial is the role of philanthropy in furthering the cause of ocean conservation and wider issues of sustainability?
WS: Philanthropy holds a unique position when it comes to problem solving. Think of philanthropic funding as a kind of philanthropic capital invested in activities of transformation. I think of our funding as energy, or velocity, brought to the work. Our risk profile for return on investment is far higher than what could be borne by industry or governments. We are patient and recognize the transformation of existing systems is a marathon, not a sprint. But over a decade, over two, you can see the shift happening in the way people think about what is possible.

Our work through Schmidt Marine Technology Partners for example, has been groundbreaking in getting useful technology that might otherwise remain a pet project into development and into the hands of marine researchers and ultimately into a global market that includes governments, research institutions, coastal and fisheries planners and managers, and many others.

Reseach Vessel Falkor photographed off the NW coast of the United states. Photo by Shelton Du Preez/SOI.

LUX: What are your future aspirations for the Schmidt Ocean Institute and its impact on advancing scientific knowledge, ocean exploration, and conservation efforts?
WS: My husband, Eric, and I look at Schmidt Ocean Institute as one of our legacy institutions–one that will live well beyond our own lifetimes. Its mission is so extensive and so critical to future life on Earth, and we know we are only at the beginning of the journey that brings humanity back to the ocean as its stewards and guardians.

I’ve been saying how little we know about the Ocean. Let me give you a few examples. There are up to 10 million marine species, bacteria and viruses in the ocean, but only 10 percent of them have been classified. That’s like saying, we don’t really know what life on Earth looks like. What we see on land is only a small part of it.

Read more: Jackie Savitz on why governments much protect the oceans

Only about 25 percent of the estimated 140 million square miles of the ocean floor has been mapped in high resolution so far. We know more about the back side of the moon than we do about our own planetary surface. Most people would be surprised to learn about underwater rivers, mountain ranges, kelp forests or how one researcher described her submarine journey into the darkness of the deep, saying everything was lighting up around her: “It’s the 4th of July down here.”

In the past, explorers had ships from which to encounter the ocean and mechanical instruments with which to sample and measure its activity. We have rovers and deep sea robots that never tire, high resolution cameras, high performance computers and AI that can see things invisible to the human eye, and make sense of information that we can’t without impossibly long periods of analysis.

If we can’t learn the Ocean with all these tools, it would be a failure of humanity to understand what our life on Earth really is, and would likely spell our doom, because with “life as usual,” we are destroying our life support system. We have a responsibility to use this extraordinary opportunity to explore the frontiers of our planet in a way that is ethical and inclusive, that will serve all peoples of the world and preserve the integrity of the living systems that support us all.

All images courtesy of the Schmidt Ocean Institute

Find out more: schmidtocean.org

William Kentridge is one of the great artists to span the last century and this one. Recently the subject of solo retrospectives at the Royal Academy of Art in London and The Broad in LA, the South African maestro sits down with LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai to discuss extremism, absurdity and politics in art

Sitting with William Kentridge ahead of our interview, as an assistant takes our order for coffee and biscuits, I can’t help playing a little game with myself. What, I wonder, would I think the great artist did for a living, if I didn’t know already?

We are backstage at the Barbican Centre, London, in the staff canteen, a windowless space that is empty for the moment as it is mid-morning. We have seated ourselves at a small square table in a corner, beneath a couple of framed newspaper cuttings of theatre reviews. Kentridge is wearing a white collared shirt and navy round-neck sweater – as, coincidentally, am I. Well built, with plenty of white-grey hair, slightly tousled and prominent white eyebrows, distinguished and just a tad authoritarian in his demeanour, he gives the vibe of being a professional.

Maybe he is a lawyer, like his parents, two of the most celebrated human-rights lawyers in his native South Africa? His father, Sir Sydney Kentridge, represented Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia trial of 1964, at the height of the apartheid system, which saw the ANC leader jailed for 27 years for campaigning for racial equality. Sydney, now 100, only retired in 2013 at the age of 90. William’s mother, Felicia, who died in 2015, founded South Africa’s Legal Resources Centre, which gave legal aid to those being prosecuted by the apartheid state.

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But no; William Kentridge looks like a doctor. That’s it. I feel like I’m sitting with a veteran family doctor, a GP who has seen years of woes and is used to answering the same questions over and over. There’s his dryness, the sense that his mind has experienced the best and worst of humanity, his ability to anticipate a question and have an answer ready, delivered in a highly articulate, slightly deadpan way.

My silly thought exercise is no more than that. Artists come in types as varied as humanity itself. And I already know that Kentridge comes from a highly learned, cultured family of Jewish humanist professionals. But still, it does connect with something else: the breadth of knowledge, reading and intellect that is packed into Kentridge’s works.

In many ways, this old white heterosexual male (by current societal definitions), with a specialism in charcoal drawings, is an unlikely global artist of the moment. His show was the centrepiece of the Royal Academy of Arts in London last autumn, and he had a similar solo show at the equally prestigious The Broad in Los Angeles after that. Much of the political and societal challenges he explores are from the last century: apartheid, the Soviet Union. Kentridge himself is 68 this year.

And yet his works, which range from charcoals to animations, vast tapestries to sculptures, theatre shows to his poster-like rubrics, have never had more relevance in a world where the absurd is becoming integrated into the cultural norm, and where the Enlightenment liberal humanism he displays is being sidelined by winds of unreason.

Coffee delivered and biscuits to hand (which are being nibbled at by Kentridge), I ask him exactly what type of artist he is. He is famous for his charcoal drawings, but he also creates stop-motion videos, animations, tapestries, opera and theatre productions, operatic films, operatic historic films… we are meeting at the Barbican because he is directing a series of short diverse performances here, developed by artists at his The Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg, which would, I tell him, for the uninformed viewer seem like quite a different art form to drawings. How would he explain what he does, in a nutshell, say to an ancestor from 100 years ago?

“I would say I make drawings, which would be familiar from 100 years ago. Sometimes those drawings are set in motion as animated film, so, if we’re in the 1890s they might have recognised that. Sometimes those projected images are used as backgrounds for theatre performances, which they would have known from 18th-century theatre-projection techniques. And so sometimes they shift between drawing and animation and theatre production and sculpture. But they all start off as drawing. Drawing is the heart of it. Even if it’s working with an actor onstage, the logic is that of making a drawing.”

There is a precision in his answer, almost jarring with its immediacy. He gives thoughtful answers but doesn’t seem to take time to think – a sign of a sharp mind.

Walk around one of Kentridge’s grand retrospectives, like the one at the RA, or the simultaneous selling show, “Oh To Believe in Another World”, around the corner at Goodman Gallery in Mayfair, and you immediately notice how prominent the themes of politics and society are in his works. At the RA, a 1997 animation playing on a loop, Ubu Tells the Truth, referred to the horrors of apartheid South Africa, including state-sponsored murders. In Goodman Gallery, we saw glimpses of the brutality of Soviet communism in his latest film (of the same name as the exhibition) and other works.

And yet there is a feeling that Kentridge, while amplifying these extremes of negative humanity, is not ideological himself, not campaigning for some political end. “No, it’s not ideological,” he agrees, referring to “Oh To Believe in Another World”. “What it is, is saying, ‘Here are the paradoxes’; that something that started with such optimism descended into such instrumental brutality. And so it sets the question of how does one find emancipation? We understand that it’s not okay for the inequalities in the world to exist, but that some of the huge-scale plans to change that have really not worked.

Illustration by Jonathan Newhouse

“That’s the paradox it sets itself in. More specifically, how did Shostakovich navigate his way through the Soviet Union? How did an artist do it? It’s a mixture between making a space for anarchic stupidity and learning from what you do, rather than telling the world what it has to do.”

Speaking with Kentridge, you soon realise that every answer gives rise to another question, which is perhaps an allegory for artistic inspiration. I ask, for example, whether he is commenting on events in these works.

William Kentridge created the artwork The Dead Report For Duty, for this issue of LUX

“I don’t see it as a commentary,” he says, “because in a commentary you need a sense of what your comment is at the beginning. At the end we discover what it is we have made. For me, the most interesting artworks are the ones that end with a riddle. You know a riddle is the edge of knowing a meaning and you can’t quite put your finger on the right word, exactly what it is, and then you become complicit in trying to construct what it is, to fill the gaps, to leap over the gaps, and that’s the place where we are. One of the phrases that comes up is, ‘There is no good solution’. There are less bad ones, though.”

So am I correct to see a kind of dark, absurdist wit in these works, despite, or perhaps because of their subject matter: apartheid, communism in the Soviet Union and the Cultural Revolution in communist China?

“Well, there’s certainly an absurdism,” he says, and then qualifies it. “In England, the absurd often just means the silly or funny. I mention the absurd as a logic that has gone astray, and then following that bad logic with complete clarity and assiduity. And if you think of what apartheid was in South Africa, it was absurd. We decide who you are by whether a pencil will stick in your hair or not, and that will determine your future. So there’s an absurdity in that, but it gets followed through with all the violence of the state behind it. It would be impossible to describe what happened in South Africa without invoking the category of the absurd, so I find it a very central way of thinking. It’s also about giving an image the benefit of the doubt – doing it and seeing what happens. And that would be like in psychoanalysis, where you use free association on the basis that something may well come out, even if you don’t know what it is in advance.”

I mention, as context, that I feel I can understand his works a little because I studied Soviet history, and worked in post-apartheid South Africa as a foreign correspondent. Do people viewing his works need this kind of knowledge?

“Hmm,” he ponders briefly. “It’s like in one of the films at the RA, where there’s an image of headphone speakers put on a pig’s head, and then the pig’s head is exploded. If you’re from South Africa, then you’ll know that was actually an experiment done by the security police to check boobytrapped headphones – they put them on a pig’s head and blew the head up. If you don’t know that story, it’s nonetheless an image of extreme violence, dichotomies and the vulgarity of putting Walkman headphones on a pig and then blowing it up.

“I think people are very good at creating or either understanding or constructing a context – which may not be that accurate, but nonetheless fulfils us. So I don’t believe that you have to understand all the context. But it helps to understand what apartheid was, to understand there was a cultural revolution in China.”

I wonder what he thinks of the current cultural battles and universalisation of identity in the Global North. Identity was, after all, the basis of apartheid, its justification for an institutionalised racial categorisation that put white people at the top, black people at the bottom, and so-labelled “coloureds” and “Indians” somewhere in the middle – although, effectively, near the bottom. I mention that when I worked as a foreign correspondent in the 1990s, the only times I had been required to state exactly what race I was on a form, were in apartheid South Africa and left-wing councils in the UK.

Do these conversations come into play in his works? His answer is, typically, a deep one that slides into a riddle before it quite gets to its point. “Not directly, but I think they do come into it. I mean, there’s a polemic against an identity politics in the world, both in the way I work with different people and in the way that if you say, like in South Africa, we had all those years of apartheid, of identity politics, black people must live here physically, this is the type of music they can listen to, white people can listen to classical music, black people must listen to jazz.

“Part of the struggle against apartheid is saying, ‘No, a black person can listen to opera, can be an opera singer.’ So there is a polemic in that. There’s a polemic in saying, ‘Why do you do it – art that is connected to politics, without it having a political message?’ It says it clearly: politics is much less clear cut, much more paradoxical, ambiguous. Much less certain.”

We turn briefly to the politics of South Africa, where the institutionalised brutality of the apartheid era briefly gave way to hope when Nelson Mandela became President in 1994, and has now degenerated into corruption and mismanagement. Is he pessimistic?

“I always feel that in South Africa to be an optimist or a pessimist is wrong, because there were two futures unfolding, an optimistic one and a pessimistic one, but the difficult future feels harder to escape. I made a film called In Defence of Optimism, which is about life in the studio: what is the optimism in here, in making something, in not leaving the paper blank, in resisting entropy? And that became a strong action rather than a theme. Downtown in Johannesburg, shockingly, they have seven hours a day without electricity, sometimes two days at a time with no water. So it means that the well-off have a generator, they have a 4 x 4 vehicle that can go over the potholes in the road, but if you’re anyone else your life is really, really difficult and messed up.”

But he is loyal. He is still there. “I am still there. And two of our three children are there. But so many of the collaborators, musicians, actors, are still there – that’s a strong pull. I would feel quite dislocated, I think, if I moved. In a way, I stay in South Africa because I don’t have to. Also, it is depressing when things are falling apart, but it’s a very interesting place to be. It would be interesting to see, when you see the whole series of performances, whether it’s, ‘Oh, my God, I’m just going to go home and slit my throat’, or whether it actually gives energy.”

Is he disappointed in the ANC – once banned under apartheid but which has governed South Africa since 1994, and has, post-Mandela, proved such a poor governor? “Yes, I think we really messed up badly in the years of the Zuma presidency [2009-18]. And it’s difficult to get out of it – our new president hasn’t done much better.”

I say that I remember Cyril Ramaphosa, whose current presidency has been marked by corruption and mismanagement scandals, when he was an ANC negotiator in the optimistic years of the 1990s: he seemed like a perfect future president – wise, thoughtful, considered. “He was, and everyone kept giving him the benefit of the doubt, saying, ‘It just takes time, it just takes time’, but now it’s been many years.”

Read more: Christopher Cowdray on the Dorchester London’s Latest Renovation

Kentridge doesn’t give much away, but you cannot create monumental, moving works like his (and the occasional funny ones) without a big emotional burden. I ask, is drawing therapeutic?

“Drawing is completely therapeutic,” he says. “However bad I’m feeling, after two hours in the studio just quietly drawing, everything seems manageable.”

At that point, the powerful intellectual sitting next to me sounds, briefly, like any vulnerable, creative artist.

Portraiture and exhibition photography by Maryam Eisler

Find out more: kentridge.studio

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

“Roth Bar” Hauser & Wirth St Moritz, 2022-2023, by Björn, Oddur and Einar Roth

As Vice President of Artnet, LUX Contributing Editor Sophie Neuendorf has a unique view of upcoming events in the art world. Here is her pick of seven shows to visit this season

Sophie Neuendorf

“Roth Bar”, Hauser & Wirth, St Moritz 
This is a fully working bar designed by Björn, Oddur and Einar Roth, son and grandsons of Dieter Roth, who first ideated the bar in the 1980s. Presented alongside a rare self portrait by Dieter Roth, this Alpine gallery iteration is a dynamic and ever-changing installation and an example of the Roths’ cross-generational practice. This exhibition uses the gallery’s ground-floor space as a hub for music, talks, readings and simply getting together.

Until 9 September 2023; hauserwirth.com

“After the Mediterranean”, Hauser & Wirth, Menorca
This profound exhibition is curated by Oriol Fontdevila. It features seven artists whose works address the human and ecological challenges affecting the Mediterranean region, as well as the human capacity to solve them.

Excerpt from The Dido Problem, 2021, by Huniti Goldox

Hauser & Wirth Menorca, Illa del Rei

Until 29 October 2023; hauserwirth.com

“Basquiat x Warhol. Painting Four Hands”, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris 
Not only is this an incredible space (designed by starchitect Frank Gehry), the exhibition promises to be one of the most notable of 2023, with the dynamic duo having created more than 160 artworks together. Also featured will be individual works, and pieces by major figures such as Jenny Holzer and Kenny Scharf, to evoke the energy of New York’s downtown art scene in the 1980s.

Dos Cabezas, 1982, by Jean-Michel Basquiat

Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris

Until 28 August 2023; fondationlouisvuitton.fr

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

“Georgia O’Keefe: To See Takes Time”, MoMa, New York 
Following the Thyssen-Bornemisza’s survey in 2021, this exhibition explores a different side to the groundbreaking modernist. O’Keeffe is known for her unique paintings of desert flowers and cow skulls, but MoMA focuses on abstract works on paper made with watercolour, pastel, charcoal and graphite, with associated paintings shown alongside.

Evening Star No III, 1917, by Georgia O’Keeffe

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Until 12 August 2023; moma.org

“Keith Haring: Art is for Everybody”, The Broad, Los Angeles 
Astonishingly, Haring has never been given a museum show in the City of Angels. Inspired by Haring’s personal journals, the exhibition will highlight his engagement with social issues, such as nuclear disarmament, capitalism, apartheid and the AIDS crisis. There will also be interactive elements, such as a gallery infused with the sounds of one of Haring’s own playlists.

Red Room, 1988, by Keith Haring

The Broad, LA

Until 8 October 2023; thebroad.org

“Marina Abramović”, Royal Academy of Arts, London
I am a huge fan of Marina Abramović, so I’m thrilled she is getting a major retrospective at the RA in London this autumn. One of a number of artists, including Vito Acconci and Chris Burden, who experimented with using the body as a medium in the 1970s, Abramović pushes physical and mental boundaries to explore themes of emotional and spiritual transfiguration. The show includes physical performances of iconic works.

Portrait of Marina Abramović

Burlington House, Royal Academy of Arts, London

23 September-10 December 2023; royalacademy.org.uk

“Women Masters, Old and Modern”, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional, Madrid
From this autumn, the Thyssen-Bornemisza shines a spotlight on ten women artists across four centuries, including Artemisia Gentileschi, Mary Cassatt and Sonia Delaunay. Curated from a feminist perspective, the show focuses on groups of artists and gallerists who shared values and socio-cultural conditions and were able, despite the patriarchy, to establish alternative gazes.

Read more: Patrick Sun on LGBTQ artists in Asia

Portia Wounding Her Thigh, 1664, by Elisabetta Sirani

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional, Madrid

31 October 2023-4 February 2024; museothyssen.org

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

Looking over Marina Bay from the Club Lounge, Ritz-Carlton Millenia, Singapore

In the third part of our luxury travel views column from the Spring/Summer 2023 issue, LUX’s Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai checks in at The Ritz-Carlton Millenia, Singapore

What drew us there?

Some city hotels have spectacular views of nature – such as those in Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town. Others have dramatic city views, as in Hong Kong and Tokyo. From our suite on the 26th floor at the Ritz-Carlton Millenia, Singapore, we had both. At night, the irregular oval of Marina Bay lit up before us, the spires and curves of its buildings encircling the bay, while the Apple and Louis Vuitton buildings floated on the water amid the ferries. Beyond the skyscrapers was the oil-tanker traffic on the Singapore Strait. We had the nature of an equatorial peninsula and one of the world’s most dynamic financial centres, all in one view.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

The refined living room of the Ritz Suite

How was the stay?

Stroll through the Ritz-Carlton lobby and you are in the centrepiece luxury hotel of a self-confident city. Ceilings are high, artworks are dramatic and well curated, and the energy levels suggest this is the place to be, in the place to be.

A perfect way to experience the hotel’s vista is from the Club Lounge on the 32nd floor. Here, we watched the sky turn orange, purple and blue (a mix of haze and effects from the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia), while drinking Rothschild champagne. The lounge has alcoves and a private room and feels very grown up.

Singapore has become a city that celebrates fine drinking as much as it does fine dining, as we saw later, downstairs in the Republic bar. The bar, voted one of the best in Asia, is 1960s themed. Decor is suitably period, and bottles of spirits and liqueurs from the era are available for drinking or mixing. You can order a Singapore sling, but that is considered a little touristic, and we weren’t brave enough to try a shot of Ramazzotti liqueur from 1960, but the stylish bartender mixed us two excellent dirty martinis. They say Singapore has taken some of the creative zing from Hong Kong. At the Republic, at least, that seemed true.

For a different experience and view, head to the hotel pool. Set in a tropical grove just below the entrance, it is sheltered from the rest of the city – a huge outdoor pool with a restful vibe.

Read more: Royal Riviera, Côte d’Azur Review

Our room was as peaceful as the bar is lively. A Club Deluxe suite, its large windows offer an ever-changing vista of the city and the Marina Bay. Decor is gentle: light pine and muted pastels, eminently suitable for a hotel that is both a high-powered business centre and a resort, which is a great strength in a hotel.

1960s cool at the Republic bar

Anything else?

The hotel is a stroll to both Marina Bay Sands – one of Asia’s most extensive luxury malls – and the hawker food markets in the other direction.

Find out more: ritzcarlton.com

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

Florence Kasumba. Photo by Diane Betties

The multilingual martial-arts expert and star of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Florence Kasumba, speaks to LUX about growing up Ugandan German and championing strong women

LUX: What inspired you to act?
Florence Kasumba: I grew up in Essen, Germany, in an all-white area. The only black people I knew were my mother and siblings. One day, my music teacher took our class to see Starlight Express. I was overwhelmed seeing people who looked like me on a stage and being celebrated by the audience. In the show, artists sing, act, dance and do acrobatics – on roller skates. I’d never seen anything like it. In that moment, I wanted to be a performer.

LUX: How do you navigate acting in three languages?
FK: I grew up in Germany, learnt English from age ten and studied in the Netherlands. I have done a lot of global productions and the common language tends to be English. But speaking three languages is one reason I have an international career.

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LUX: Is your Ugandan German identity important to you?
FK: I was socialised in Germany in a Ugandan household, but I am more familiar with the German way of living. When it comes to identity, I walk through life as a black woman. I am aware of my appearance and have learnt how to navigate in different situations. Some are safe, some not. That is just part of my life.

LUX: How does a director get the best out of you?
FK: I perform 100 per cent. That is my duty. It helps when the director does not scream at me.

LUX: How do you get the best out of you?
FK: For everything that does not come naturally, I ask for help. If I have to speak with an accent, I work with a language coach. If I have to work with weapons, I train with experts. I will always give my best effort, but give me time and training and you will get my absolute best.

Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong’o and Florence Kasumba in a scene from Black Panther © Matt Kennedy/Disney/Marvel Studios via AP

LUX: What are the joys and pains of you job?
FK: I enjoy roles that need a certain physicality. Ayo in the Marvel films is one of my favourites as I get to train with the Marvel stunt team, which is fun – but sometimes painful. Like most people, I can feel insecure out of my comfort zone – when I need a skill that is not yet developed, or when dialogue has been changed just before I go on set. It used to bother me when people were rude, but now I know how to steer my focus to what is important for the scene. I am grateful I chose this path to become a performer.

LUX: Tell us about your character in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
FK: I play Ayo, one of the Dora Milaje, an elite troop of Wakandan female warriors. Ayo and her team are responsible for the safety of the King and Queen of Wakanda, and the royal family.

LUX: Are martial arts good for body and soul?
FK: I am not an expert on the effects of martial arts on the human body, but from my experience in Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi Chen, Tai Chi Yang and Qigong, my body has become stronger, I focus better and I am mentally stronger. Regular training has improved my coordination, flexibility, endurance and accuracy. I am more balanced and have less tension in my body.

Read more: Carolina Bucci on creating her own brand vision

LUX: What’s your favourite memory from the German TV series Deutschland 86/89?
FK: Working with the creative team was fun. We mainly filmed 86 in South Africa and working with actors who had experienced apartheid was educational. I enjoyed Cape Town. My favourite time was the scene in the safe house, when ANC members plan their next move. We were a lot of actors in one room and had time to chat between takes. This is how you get to know about people’s lives and culture.

LUX: How would you advise young people?
FK: I would say: work hard, stay focused, do not compare yourself to others, know you will make mistakes and learn from them. Surround yourself with people who have the same passion you do. Once you have found them, support each other.

Interview by Isabella Sheherazade Sanai

Black Panther: Wakande Forever is available to stream on Disney+

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

Patrick Sun at the exhibition “Myth Makers – Spectrosynthesis III”, JC Contemporary, Tai Kwun, Hong Kong

One of Asia’s bravest, most significant and most understated art philanthropists, Patrick Sun speaks to LUX about the challenges LGBTQ artists face in Asia, and who he is collecting

Patrick Sun has a light touch. When we bump into him at an art event in Singapore, he chats joshingly with some of the other collectors and exchanges thoughts on which parties to attend, or avoid. But his mission is anything but light.

A Hong Kong native, educated in Canada, Sun made his fortune in property development in his home territory, all the while turning his attention to philanthropy with a purpose. His Sunpride Foundation supports LGBTQ artists and art in a region where they have traditionally been sidelined or suppressed.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Sunpride has supported and co-hosted a series of shows entitled “Spectrosynthesis”, which started as the first LGBTQ themed exhibition staged in an art museum in Asia. Sun collects art from Asian artists with an aim to support LGBTQ creators. Beneath the light touch is a serious purpose, and an awareness of the suffering many LGBTQ artists face, particularly in more conservative Asian cultures.

Hollyhock and Pure Daisies, 2020, by Yue Minjun

Sun chatted with us after our meeting in Singapore. He has raised a great deal of awareness in a short space of time, but there is a long way to go in a continent where homosexuality is illegal in several countries, and has a cultural stigma in others.

LUX: What recent acquisitions are you most excited by, and why?
Patrick Sun: I can think of two that are each significant in their own way. First, Yue Minjun’s Hollyhock and Pure Daisies: a portrait of gay icon Leslie Cheung and his partner, which features two flowers that are not supposed to bloom in the same season, representing the love between a couple who are not “meant” to be together. Second is Visitors by Bhupen Khakhar. We have always wanted to collect Bhupen Khakhar‘s paintings, but since his retrospective at Tate Modern in 2016, good works are rare to come by and prices have skyrocketed, often reaching several times the high estimate at auctions.

Artist Ming Wong, Patrick Sun and artist Korakrit Arunanondchai at the “Spectrosynthesis II” opening party, Bangkok, 2019

When we saw Visitors, a beautiful painting that was to be auctioned in London, we asked for a private viewing and got to meet a Sotheby’s expert, Ishrat, who is passionate about Khakhar’s work. The painting shows the artist lying on his deathbed, revisited by spirits of past friends and lovers. Ishrat shared how Bhupen didn’t paint any explicit scenes concerning his sexuality until his mother passed away. She got emotional as she related the story and it also brought tears to my eyes, because it dawned on me that the year my mother died was the year I started Sunpride. Ishrat and I cried on each other’s shoulders and did the utmost to help us procure the work, concluding the purchase just hours before it was supposed to go under the hammer.

Visitors, 1998, by Bhupen Khakhar

LUX: Do you only collect works by LGBTQ artists?
PS: As illustrated by the Yue Minjun work, the answer is no. We also collect works by straight artists that explore a queer theme. It is important to have such representation, so that nobody needs to be labelled or “outed” through their participation in our collection or exhibitions.

Patrick Sun with collector Rudy Tseng

LUX: Is real progress being made on LGBTQ affairs in Asia?
PS: Progress often comes in ebbs and flows. On the whole, I see more progress than regress towards the queer community. Take Hong Kong as an example: on issues such as spousal visas, taxation and housing benefits, there has been some advancement in the right direction. Just in February 2023, transgender people scored a victory in gender status on identification documents. I remain optimistic things will change for the better.

Installation at “Spectrosynthesis II”, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre 7/F, BACC, 2019

LUX: Do artists of all types have more freedom and creativity than a few years back?
PS: I am not in a position to answer for all artists, but for queer artists in Hong Kong I believe the answer is affirmative. In recent years, we have had more LGBTQ themed exhibitions, both in public and private spaces. We have also seen more presentation of such works in art fairs and galleries.

Sun with artist Yuki Kihara at Kihara’s installation, Paradise Camp, New Zealand Pavillion, 59th Venice Biennale, 2022

LUX: What are the most exciting places in Asia for art?
PS: I think Hong Kong and Tokyo are two very exciting cities to focus on. Art Basel returned to Hong Kong in full force in March 2023, and the excitement was palpable and invigorating. I also have very good feelings about Tokyo when it comes to queer art: the sentiments are ripening for a more diverse and inclusive society, and a new art fair will take place in July 2023.

Installation view featuring Conundrum Ka Sorga (To Heaven), 2019, by Anne Samat, at “Myth Makers – Spectrosynthesis III”, JC Contemporary, Tai Kwun, Hong Kong, 2022

LUX: Singapore is getting a creative glow, but will it catch up with Hong Kong for art?
PS: I have never felt there is a need to pitch one city against the other. If there is competition I believe it would be a healthy one. The market in Asia is certainly big enough to accommodate two or more art hubs.

Patrick Sun with collector Disaphol Chansiri

LUX: Are you pessimistic or optimistic about the future of creativity in Asia?
PS: I am by nature an optimist, and I believe that a positive attitude helps attract the right energy, especially creative energy.

LUX: What are the most interesting advances in digital art?
PS: Interactive installations and generative creations are two developments I find most interesting. Both use technology to reach beyond capabilities of the human mind.

Patrick Sun

LUX: Will AI kill art?
PS: I see AI as a way for humans to explore new horizons and perspectives. It is a collaboration between human and machines rather than a rivalry. I believe AI can enhance our artistic culture and diversity instead of diminishing it.

LUX: How have events in the past couple of years affected your mission?
PS: Our mission remains unchanged since the foundation’s establishment in 2014, but Covid has inevitably affected some plans. Our most recent exhibition, “Myth makers – Spectrosynthesis III”, at Tai Kwun, Hong Kong, was meant to be held concurrently with Gay Games in Hong Kong, originally planned for 2022. We were aiming for synergy between arts and sports to enhance acceptance for the LGBTQ community.

Passion, 2017, by Jun-Jieh Wang, at “Spectrosynthesis”, MOCA Taipei, 2017

Gay Games postponed its event due to the pandemic, but we decided to stay put. With Covid-related curbs, it was also difficult for our curatorial team to reach out to overseas artists to commission works and to get them to fly here for installations.

Read more: Art Dubai opens in support of South Asian artists

However, staging the exhibition in Hong Kong, where our curators and myself are based, helped to minimise the impact of this issue. There was actually a sliver lining, because we benefitted in having a broader local representation; more than one-third of the artworks presented in “Myth Makers” were created by artists based in Hong Kong.

Find out more: sunpride.hk

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (Devil), 1982. Private Collection; © 2023 Phillips Auctioneers LLC, all rights reserved; © Estate of Jean-Michel
Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York

Eight monumental works created by Jean-Michel Basquiat when he was 21 years old are brought together for the first time in an exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler, institutional partner of Swiss luxury watch brand Richard Mille. By Darius Sanai

What is it about Jean-Michel Basquiat that continues to captivate, 35 years after his death in the summer of 1988 at the age of 27? His art, for sure. Although he wasn’t quite the global superstar he would become after his death, his art was recognised at the time as being original, monumental, complex, important.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Then there are the societal and political themes. Born to a Haitian father and a mother born to Puerto Rican parents, Basquiat was, and arguably remains, the only black artist to have achieved global superstardom. The representations of racial oppression in his works came less than 20 years after segregation – a form of apartheid – was formally abolished in the US.

Jean-Michael Basquiat, Profit 1, 1982. Private Collection, Switzerland © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York. Photo by Robert Bayer

And then there is the social context. Although many of the themes in his work are deadly serious, Basquiat was a pioneer and a high-flier in perhaps the most exciting art scene that has ever existed in the western world, that of New York during the birth of hip- hop, punk, new wave and rap. He was friends with Andy Warhol, sold his first painting to Debbie Harry (for $200) and made music with some of the biggest names in the emerging hip-hop scene. Basquiat was friends with Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash, as well as a punk-art crowd at the Mudd Club and CBGB. He also had a good fortune, or misfortune, to shoot to fame during one of the art world’s biggest booms, which subsequently went bust not long after his death of a death heroin overdose.

The 1980s are, in many ways, when the contemporary era began, and Basquiat, and graffiti poet, musician and multimedia artist, was a fresh symbol of the era, both in his works and his vivid social life, making Warhol at the time seem old and outdates to many. There is also the fact that Basquiat was making art in parts of New York that were run down to the point of abandonment – this is a city that declared bankruptcy in the 1970s – and which are now the site of the homes of wealthy art collectors, who may have been children when Basquiat’s legend was being established.

Jean-Michael Basquiat, Untitled (Woman with Roman Torso [Venus]), 1982. Private Collection © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York. Photo by Robert Bayer

Basquiat’s life itself seems to be out of a fictional movie so cruel it could not be made. Inspired in art and poetry by his moth, who subsequently disappeared into a universe of insanity; a poet writing on walls with a sharpness of words and perceptiveness that could shock society; a socialite and charmer so handsome he was asked to work as a catwalk model and who counted himself as Madonna‘s first boyfriend; an artist of such originality and brilliance that his work s have grown with time; and a young man with countless pressures pressing down on him who died of a drug overdose in new York’s 1980s peak.

Ultimately, it’s all about the art, as this monumental exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland, demonstrates. “Basquiat: The Modena Paintings” showcases eight huge canvases, all over two metres by four metres, created by the artist when he was invited to create works in the Italian city in 1982, at the age of 21. Already a celebrated name on the contemporary art scene, Basquiat was invited to Modena by the Italian gallerist Emilio Mazzoli, who provided Basquiat with a warehouse space to create work for an intended solo exhibition. It was not a happy time for Basquiat, who later commentated, “They set it up for me so I’d have to make eight paintings in a week”, adding that working in the warehouse made him feel like he was in a “sick factory”. He made eight paintings, before a disagreement between the artist’s representative and Mazzoli led to the cancellation of the exhibition. The gallerist paid Basquiat for his work and he returned home.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Guilt of Gold Teeth, 1982. Nahmad Collection © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York. Photo by Annik Wetter

It took time for the eight works to find homes – astonishingly, in retrospect, as they are now considered some of his greatest works, perhaps his greatest. The exhibition at the Beyeler was the first time they have ever been reunited and shown in one place, and the location is highly apposite. In 1983, a year after his unhappy trip to Modena, Basquiat was invited by Ernst Beyeler to take part in the exhibition “Expressive Painting after Picasso” at his gallery in Basel – a Basquiat work was on the cover of the exhibition catalogue. Years later, in 2010, the Fondation Beyeler, of which luxury Swiss watch brand Richard Mille is an institutional partner, held the first major museum Basquiat retrospective.

Read more: The Richard Mille Art Prize with Louvre Abu Dhabi

We can only imagine what Basquiat – who would be in his sixties now – would have produced had his life not come to such an early end; what contributions he would have made not just to the art world, but to the broader world of the arts – to poetry and to society as a whole, as perhaps the first celebrity contemporary artist. But in these canvases in Basel, his power and brilliance are compelling.

Find out more: fondationbeyeler.ch

Photo by Ben Thouard

To achieve the Paris Agreement target of net zero by 2050, the world needs to shift to green infrastructure – now. In part 1 of our two-part series on making that change, Claire Asher shows how the public and private sectors can speed the move from fossil fuels to green energy

Giving up our addiction to fossil fuels will be the biggest energy transition the modern world has seen. It will require rapid changes to our energy systems and huge investments from both the public and private sectors, and it will be essential to ensure a liveable climate for generations to come.

Roberto Schaeffer

The first steps in this transition are already underway. By redesigning systems, such as heating and transportation, to use electricity rather than liquid or gas fuel, we gain the flexibility to generate that energy from a variety of sources. “Everything that can be electrified will have to be electrified,” says Roberto Schaeffer, Professor of Energy Economics at the Energy Planning Program of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Our future energy portfolio will likely include a mixture of wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, biofuels and nuclear energy, tailored regionally to match local availability, as well as social and political priorities.

“Our total energy use will decline significantly as we electrify transportation and heating,” says Anthony Patt, Full Professor of Climate Policy at the Institute of Environmental Decisions (ETH) in Zurich. Nevertheless, global electricity demand will likely rise as we transition, to replace existing coal- and gas-fired power plants and to replace fossil fuels used in transportation and heating. “We’re going to need a lot of new power, a lot of investment into wind and solar,” he says.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

In the short term, growing energy demands will be eased by improving efficiency. “There’s capital needed in the near term to help reduce energy wastage,” says Alice Miles, Head of Infrastructure Specialists at DWS Group asset managers. “It sounds a lot less glamorous, but there needs to be investment to upgrade to more efficient air conditioning, ventilation and refrigeration systems, better insulation and better boilers.”

Balancing Supply and Demand

Compared with fossil fuels, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and hydroelectric provide a less consistent output that varies daily and seasonally, so matching energy supply with demand will be challenging. The most obvious solution is to store energy for later use, but installing batteries to store electricity is not cost-effective. “If you’re thinking about storing power from one season to the next, it becomes almost prohibitively expensive,” says Patt.

Anthony Patt

Scaling up battery storage will also place pressure on global supply chains. Current battery technology relies on specific minerals, such as lithium and cobalt, which are produced in only a few countries, including China, Bolivia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although renewables promise increased energy independence, Schaeffer warns that, “with the energy transition, we may become even more dependent on a few countries because of the need for these materials.”

An alternative to large-scale energy storage is large-scale energy grids. “We need a grid that is bigger than our weather systems to balance out the regional differences in production,” says Patt. Weather systems alter wind speeds for days at a time, at the scale of hundreds of kilometres, so this will mean “moving from a national model of electricity planning to a more European model, and with a lot of grid interconnections,” he explains. With the right continental-scale planning and grid infrastructure in place, “you could install enough wind and solar in the right places, so that we wouldn’t have to store electricity,” adds Patt. However, this may be politically challenging.

Building a Diverse Energy Portfolio

“The number of sectors where it is cost-effective to electrify has only been increasing,” says Patt. But there are exceptions, such as the steel and chemicals industries, aviation and shipping. Alternative fuels will be needed to reach net zero in these sectors.

Biofuels, such as bioethanol or biodiesel, are one such alternative. “Biofuels can be engineered to produce exactly the kind of molecule we need for a plane or a ship, meaning that you don’t need to adapt,” Schaeffer suggests. “Similarly, some oil refineries can be adapted to also co-process biomass.” This has the further advantage of mitigating the inevitable obsolescence of existing infrastructure. However, the role of biofuels will likely be limited by competition with food crops for available fertile land and fresh water.

Synthetic fuels, produced directly from water and carbon dioxide using solar energy, could be used as an alternative to fossil fuels for sectors such as long-haul air travel and shipping. But these technologies are not yet fully mature.

A third option is hydrogen, although currently most hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels. “Really, the only sustainable option is so-called green hydrogen, which uses renewable power to split water into hydrogen and oxygen,” says Patt. This method could be used in chemicals industries that require extremely high temperatures, or as a replacement for coal in the steel industry. Elsewhere, Patt believes hydrogen’s role will be limited. “It’s going to be much more efficient to just use electricity,” he explains.

Climate Change Threat to Energy Infrastructure

Energy infrastructure was designed to withstand climate and weather conditions experienced over past centuries, but the coming decades will bring more extremes, meaning that current infrastructure will be operating outside its tolerance levels more frequently. For example, sea-level rise poses risks to coastal fossil-fuel extraction and processing infrastructure, such as oil and natural-gas platforms and refineries; increasingly frequent and severe storms can damage energy transmission lines, such as overhead electricity pylons; extreme heatwaves and drought could impact the water-based cooling systems used by coal and nuclear power plants.

Existing infrastructure may need to be adapted to cope with these extremes, and new infrastructure will need to be designed to withstand the new normal. “We have to build infrastructure that’s going to be capable of dealing with a new world,” Schaeffer explains.

There is, however, an irony in some cases. “Renewables seem to be much more vulnerable to climate change,” Schaeffer says. This is because they rely on natural processes that may be disrupted as the climate changes, such as rainfall and air currents that drive hydroelectric and wind turbines. “It is paradoxical that fossil fuels are more reliable in the face of climate change,” he adds. Changing weather patterns may reduce hydropower output, by making dry spells drier and overloading the system during the wet season. However, computer simulations by Patt and colleagues suggest that the impact of climate change on total energy output from wind and solar will be small.

Photo by Ben Thouard

Creating the Right Regulatory Environment

“From a technical point of view, the energy problem is solvable,” says Schaeffer. Renewable electricity is now the cheapest source of power in most regions, and estimates suggest that it could satisfy 65 per cent of the world’s energy needs by 2030. However, new infrastructure means large and long-term investments.

“The critical thing is to create a regulatory environment in which anybody investing in renewable-energy production knows they’ll make money,” says Patt. An example would be government incentive schemes, such as feed-in tariffs, which guarantee a fixed price per unit of renewable energy. “These remove the issue of market volatility, which has been a major impediment to new investment in the power system,” says Patt. “Solar and wind are cheap enough now that these policies don’t have to be expensive, but they are important to remove market volatility and guarantee a positive return on investment.”

Read more: Markus Müller on the links between the ocean and the economy

Recent global crises have underscored the need for a global energy transition. “There has really been a shift in mindset,” says Miles. “There were a couple of things that drove that change and crystallised the focus. The war in Ukraine was one, both in terms of the huge increase in the cost of energy, but also energy security, particularly in Europe; COVID-19 was the other.”

With increases in oil and gas prices, disruptions to global supply chains, concerns about energy security and the impacts of climate change becoming increasingly visible, more businesses and investors understand that the energy transition is not only needed, but presents a valuable opportunity. “In the EU alone, it’s estimated that the green transition will cost €350bn, of which €250bn will need to come from non-government sources,” explains Miles. “Investors increasingly recognise the opportunity to support the energy transition while generating an attractive return.”

How to scale up to net zero

To achieve the Paris Agreement target of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, green-energy solutions not only need to happen, but need to scale up fast. This urgency presents opportunities for investors hoping to support the energy transition and see a positive return on their investment. “I think private capital will play a huge role in taking businesses with proven business models and proven technology, but which need scale, to the next level of growth,” says Alice Miles, Head of Infrastructure Specialists at DWS Group. “Without scale, a lot of these initiatives are just a drop in the ocean.”

Alice Miles

The infrastructure for generating renewable energy, such as wind and solar, tends to have high initial investment costs, but relatively low operating and maintenance costs. Once operational, renewables projects can sometimes provide investors with stable revenue that is relatively sheltered from price volatilities. For example, power purchase agreements (PPAs) between electricity generators and consumers such as utility companies, set a fixed price per unit of electricity over a multi-year time frame, offering stability and de-risking revenues for the generators. However, in other scenarios, investors may be exposed to energy price volatility without recourse to protect themselves.

“There’s a virtuous relationship here, because there are investors with capital to deploy who want to see a good return, and then there are companies with proven technologies that need to scale,” says Miles. “Both of those parties can win – and we can all win – by finding the right way to route capital to the companies that can make an enormous contribution to the energy transition story.”

This article was first published in the Deustche Bank Supplement in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

(left to right): Oceana CEO Andrew Sharpless, Oceana Board Member Dr. Daniel Pauly, X, Oceana Chief Policy Officer Jacqueline Savitz, and Oceana President Jim Simon attend the Oceana’s 2021 SeaChange Summer Party in Laguna Beach, CA. Photo by Kevin Warn

Jackie Savitz is a marine biologist and the Chief Policy Officer for Oceana, an ocean conservation organization focused on influencing policy decisions. Here, she speaks to LUX about how and why governments need to be pressured to introduce fundamental policy changes for the good of all

LUX: You have an extensive background in environmental science. When did you decide to dedicate your career to ocean conservation?
Jaqueline Savitz: Ever since I was a teenager, I knew that I wanted to protect the oceans. After I was exposed to a marine science program at Wallops Island, VA, there was no turning back. I grew up spending summers at my grandparents’ on the New Jersey coast and fell in love with the ocean at an early age, so when it was clear that ocean conservation could be a profession, I was sold. It was obvious to me – even as a kid – that human impact on the environment needed to be managed, and that the implications of not doing so would undermine the integrity of the environment, including our oceans.

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LUX: Can you tell us more about Oceana’s goals and values, and your role within the organisation?
JS: At Oceana, we recognize that the oceans can provide food for a billion people or more, on a regular basis, if they are properly managed. Making fisheries sustainable is key, but it’s not the only thing we need to do to realise that goal. We also have to prevent pollution and climate change, which both threaten biodiversity and the health of marine ecosystems. For example, plastic pollution does not belong in the stomachs and digestive tracts of sea turtles, sea birds, fish, marine mammals, or even humans. The fact that this is already the case indicates a threat to the survival of sea turtles as they are threatened or endangered species, and it could also compromise populations that are not yet endangered. We also advocate for transparency which, when built into our policies, or made real through technology, can allow our societies to better manage resources.

As Chief Policy Officer, I oversee Oceana’s campaigns in the United States as well as in Belize, Mexico, and the European Union. My goal is to make sure we have impactful and successful campaigns that rebuild fisheries, reduce illegal fishing, and protect the marine ecosystem from oil and gas development and plastic pollution.

Jackie Savitz speaks as Oceana Presents: Sting Under the Stars in Los Angeles, CA on Tuesday, July 19, 2016.
Photo by Alex J. Berliner/ABImages

LUX: Working on this global scale, can you tell us about the challenges you’ve encountered while navigating different political landscapes when working towards policy change?
JS: Oceana works in countries that have a democratic process in place, which is key to creating people-driven change. However, even in a democracy, there are impediments to winning policies to protect the oceans. Strong corporate lobbies like the petroleum, plastics, and fishing industries have a lot of muscle to push back against policies that benefit all of us, such as those to stop overfishing and ensure we have fish in the future, or policies to transition to clean energy and reduce the impacts of climate change. But we have found that we can win when politicians hear science-based messages from diverse voices, all saying that a new direction is needed.

LUX: How can organisations like Oceana effectively communicate complex environmental issues to the public to encourage action and engagement?
JS: Communicating science in a way that makes sense to the public can be difficult, but it is essential and not impossible. We recognise that our audience is much larger than the scientific community, and it includes journalists, lawmakers, and citizens of every profession. We speak to our audience, and that may mean we write scientifically for scientists or legalistically for legislators, and we speak to citizens in plain language that allows them to interpret the message and take action. We have found that when we engage the public, we can influence legislators on all sides and win campaigns that may look impossible at the outset.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro via Unsplash

LUX: How is the use of technology transforming the field of marine conservation?
JS: There are so many technological tools that are now being applied to marine conservation that we should anticipate great leaps forward as a result. Satellites bring us increasingly complex data on ocean conditions and activities, providing the locations of cargo ships, fishing vessels, and more, and introducing a world of new possibilities. The application of machine learning and the ability to work with massive amounts of data is incredibly empowering. Oceana, along with our partners at Skytruth and Google, used those tools to build a web platform that makes the actions of fishing vessels visible in near-real time, and we make it available to the public online for free. It’s called Global Fishing Watch, and it has continued to increase capabilities since its formal launch in 2016. This is creating transparency on fishing globally and allowing Oceana to continue to evaluate fishing activity so we can identify and enforce against illegal fishing.

LUX: Given your background in academia, how do you think we should be bridging the gap between scientific knowledge and policy-making?
JS: Science is fundamental, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Politics is real, and it has an impact everywhere. So much of policy is not based purely on science. It is influenced more and more by powerful lobby groups and the only way I know of to overcome that is to organise voters, real people, who are affected by policies, and make sure their elected officials are hearing from them. Voters are the main source of accountability and when there is accountability, we can create an environment where science and public interests prevail.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry and Jacqueline Savitz at the launch of Global Fishing Watch reception in 2016.
Photo by Franz Mahr

LUX: Oceana has had numerous key victories in the realm of ocean conservation and policy making. Which of these victories are you most proud of?
JS: I’m incredibly proud of our teams that have stopped bottom trawling in 90% of the U.S. West Coast states of California, Oregon, and Washington. We have fought bottom trawling in Europe, Belize, and Brazil, as well. And our teams in the U.S., Belize, and Europe have taken many types of gillnets (some of them a mile long and many stories deep) out of the ocean. So much habitat has been protected, and so many animals have survived because of those campaigns. We hope to replicate that elsewhere and continue to increase protections against bycatch, overfishing, and habitat destruction.

LUX: You’ve spoken before about the link between conserving the oceans and feeding the world’s hungry. What key changes need to be made in the seafood industry to address the problems we are facing today?
JS: Governments need to set science-based limits to prevent overfishing, prevent bycatch of species that are not targeted including other fish, as well as marine mammals, sea turtles, sharks, and more, and we need to protect marine habitat that fish and other sea life depend on for activities like feeding, breeding, and shelter from predators.

Read more: Jean-Baptiste Jouffray on the future of the world’s oceans

LUX: What do you hope is the next big policy win on the horizon for Oceana?
JS: On offshore drilling, President Biden is preparing to issue the government’s next five-year plan for offshore oil and gas leasing. Normally, there would be several new lease sales to petroleum companies in this plan, which could then pursue permits to drill for oil and gas in U.S. waters. What’s different this year is that President Biden vowed to offer no new leases for oil and gas drilling, and Oceana has pressed for a plan that does not include, and therefore would not allow, new leases to be sold.

The industry currently holds more than a thousand leases that it has not even used, so no new leasing doesn’t mean there would be no more drilling. There is enough area leased to support our fossil fuel needs into the next decade, and demand is expected to decline. So, standing by the pledge for no new leasing would be an important and clear signal that the U.S. takes seriously the need to shift away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy, which is the only way we can reduce the impacts of climate change.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro via Unsplash

LUX: What do you believe our oceans will look like in 10 years time?
JS: There is a big push right now to protect marine habitat through the development of marine protected areas. The goal is to protect 30% of ocean habitat by 2030. So, in 10 years we could see a much larger amount of our oceans being protected. If so, it will have a major impact on marine biodiversity. Marine protected areas, when well-managed, can not only provide a refuge for marine life, but also seed the surrounding waters, since fish and other animals don’t adhere to boundaries. The benefits of this movement toward protection will be felt beyond the boundaries of the protected areas, and in much more than 30% of the oceans. There is a caution here, because, without true protection, such as bans on bottom trawling and other non-selective gear, such protections could provide a false sense of success, without delivering the promise of abundant fisheries and healthy marine ecosystems.

Our oceans are facing diverse threats from climate change, overfishing, plastic pollution, and more. We know the solutions; it’s not rocket science. But to protect the oceans, we need public engagement to hold decision-makers accountable for making the right policy choices that ensure we have abundant fisheries continuing into the future, with healthy ecosystems free from pollution to support those fish and other important marine animals too.