Arch Hades, London, March 2026, by Maryam Eisler

Arch Hades’ multidisciplinary practice oscillates between poetry, painting and text-based installation, shaped by existential philosophy and an unflinching engagement with the human condition. She speaks to Catherine Loewe about grief, gender, power and the inspiration behind her most monumental work, unveiled during this year’s Venice Biennale, accompanied by portraits by Maryam Eisler

Catherine Loewe: Your route into the arts was unconventional: you had an earlier career in politics, then published six volumes of poetry. How did the transition into visual art occur?

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Arch Hades: It began with failure. I took Art at GCSE, but when a teacher lost my coursework I was downgraded to a grade B. At my academically competitive school, I was told not to bother doing Art for A level or applying to art school, so I didn’t. I did, however, excel in Politics. I took a year out before university to work in Parliament and continued throughout my degree. I didn’t even attend my graduation – I didn’t want to take the day off. I was locked in for years, until I grew disillusioned and decided it was time to try and do something creative. Turns out politics is not that different from the arts. Politics is competitive storytelling.

A studio view of Return, 2025, by Arch Hades

The pivotal moment came when my fourth book Arcadia was illustrated and sold as a digital film at Christie’s for a tidy sum and I was able to set up a home studio. The reward for making art is you get to make more art. I spent the pandemic writing books and re-training as a painter. I was 30 by the time I picked up a paintbrush since my B at GCSE. It’s been a journey.

CL: How has your time in the political sphere impacted your practice? Are you engaged in gender politics?

AH: Oh boy, my whole life is gender politics. Making art as a woman is inherently political because it represents a rejection of the traditional life of silent service, even if the work itself isn’t explicitly political. Some of my poetry does address politics directly – particularly 21st Century Human, which includes a section titled 21st Century Woman on emotional labour and gender expectations.

My visual practice is rooted in existentialism, which I see as a political philosophy. Existentialism insists on responsibility without divine authority: meaning must be made, not received. Historically, as women, we have come so far – once we couldn’t vote, open bank accounts or wear trousers, and that exclusion was normalised. Progress depends on better choices and accountability. I want to see powerful men being held responsible for their actions. There is more to hope and fight for.

Roots, 2025, by Arch Hades

CL: What are your defining moments?

AH: Experiencing loss and grief at an early age. Once death enters your life, it never fully leaves. It’s impossible to explain human cruelty to a child. After profound loss washes over you, all beauty becomes marked by tragedy – by its inevitable impermanence and the knowledge that none of this is ours, we are only permitted to enjoy it for a while. There is a glory in that. It’s a privilege to love what death does not touch.

Read more: Arch Hades’ Return at the Venice Biennale

CL: What do you look for in an extraordinary work of art?

AH: The mysterious and the inexplicable: I’m drawn to works I cannot fully rationalise, those I return to again and again. One of my favourite paintings is Cow Beside a Ditch by Willem Maris. There is nothing ostensibly remarkable about it, yet it feels as though it was painted specifically for me. Donna Tartt describes this sensation perfectly in The Goldfinch as “the nail where your fate is liable to catch and snag”.

The Sea, The Sea, 2025, by Arch Hades

CL: Which artists have shaped your visual language?

AH: The list is ever growing, but I always return to René Magritte, Franz Sedlacek, Andrew Wyeth, Tamara de Lempicka and Francis Bacon – artists who balance precision with unease and return insistently to the human condition.

CL: Who are your favourite poets, living and dead?

AH: Byron, Rainer Maria Rilke, Mary Oliver, WH Auden, Carol Ann Duffy, Joseph Brodsky and Pablo Neruda.

CL: What is your current obsession?

AH: Byzantine iconography. It’s supremely stylised and unapologetically confident: elongated forms, flattened space, strict geometry, repetition of symbols and often bizarre human expressions. In my new series I replace human saints with scenes of nature – a not-so-subtle nod to what we should really be worshipping.

It’s time to return the love I borrowed, Confessions series, 2025, by Arch Hades

CL: Can you describe your working process?

AH: I begin at the end. Whether writing or painting, I visualise the final state before I start. In poetry, I often write the last line first. I first need to articulate to myself what I want the viewer or reader to feel, then visualise the final composition, textures and rhythm before executing the steps. I’m not spontaneous or carefree, I’m a planner.

CL: How do you think about colour?

Read more: Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda’s art manifesto

AH: I love the drama of monochrome and draw great inspiration from filmmakers like Tarkovsky and Fritz Lang.

Too many colours overstimulate me – orange in particular makes my skin itch. I haven’t worn anything but black for years. Sergei Parajanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates demonstrates how restrained colour, glazed against near-monochrome scenes, can be devastatingly effective. In my own work, I typically introduce only two colours – ultramarine blue-green and alizarin crimson – to pull the eye toward the central subjects of the composition.

I catch myself mourning the present like it’s already a memory, Confessions series, 2025, by Arch Hades

CL: Tell us about Return (2025), the centrepiece of your upcoming Venice exhibition.

AH: Return is a 13-metre-wide, 22-panel painting composed of 63 life-size nude figures, installed across three walls, like an altar triptych. It’s the largest scale project I’ve undertaken and a huge honour to be invited by the Erarta Foundation to show in a beautiful decommissioned church on the Grand Canal.

The work draws inspiration from Gustav Klimt’s lost Faculty Paintings, particularly his vision of bodies drifting through a symbolic river of life. My figures echo Greco-Roman sculpture: they flow, merge and ultimately dissolve into a black abyss at the centre, tracing the full spectrum of human emotion – grief, fear, desire, tenderness. Some are tributes to family and friends; others reference art history – the Three Graces, or Bernini’s Rape of Proserpina in the Galleria Borghese.

Klimt’s Faculty Paintings have a tragic history. Commissioned in 1894 for the Great Hall of the University of Vienna, the panels – on Medicine, Philosophy and Jurisprudence – were destroyed when retreating German SS forces set fire to the building. Only preparatory sketches and photographs remain. That sense of loss, of cultural memory erased feels profoundly relevant.

Return | Ritorno  unfolds across three floors of the Scoletta Battioro e Tiraoro di Venezia, a decommissioned church on the Grand Canal in Venice. Photograph by Eva Herzog

CL: You’re also presenting Sphinx, an interactive sculpture that integrates visual art and poetry.

AH: Every sculpture begins with a poem. I look for ways to materialise language as a physical object, using acrylic polymer and mirrors to explore reflection, transparency and opacity. Debuting Sphinx in Venice feels fitting. I loved the riddle as a child, the idea of the self as a traveller passing through time. That question – the nature of being human – runs through everything I do. We labour in webs spun long before we were born, but we can still shape our fate.

Read more: Jennifer Shorto’s highlights of the Cora Sheibani collection

My optimism comes from lived experience. My mother took us out of a totalitarian environment and into this dream of democracy, where individual choices matter. It is not hopeless or useless.

CL: Text continues to play a central role in your practice. Can you tell us more?

AH: Writing has always sought permanence – from The Epic of Gilgamesh onward. Poetry demands vulnerability, and connection demands authenticity. My Confessions series, which will also be included in the Venice show, draws on decades of journalling. I enlarge handwritten diary fragments onto concrete and marble slabs, transforming private confession into public object. Here, text is not illustrative – it is the work. Sometimes it succeeds, sometimes it doesn’t. It requires vulnerability, but I’ve found that the phrases I was most afraid to reveal are often the ones that resonate the most with audiences.

Return | Ritorno in progress in the studio, courtesy of Arch Hades

CL: We’re living through profound cultural and political shifts. How do you situate yourself within this moment?

AH: I hate that we are transitioning from nature as our host of life to mass technology as our environment. That’s what Arcadia, my fourth book, is about. We risk losing something ancient and essential in the process.

CL: Which artwork would you live with, if you could?

AH: Malevich’s Black Square, displayed in the corner as originally intended. It articulates one of my central philosophical positions: the rejection of religious authority and challenging tradition that ultimately celebrates existentialism. I don’t believe I should own it – but perhaps I could borrow it?

CL: If you could have lunch with anyone you admire, who would it be?

AH: Goodness, there are so many people I look up to. Living: Maria Ressa, Anne Applebaum, Maia Sandu. And dead: Jane Goodall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mileva Marić.

I’d like to have lunch with Shabana Mahmood, the [UK] Home Secretary, or Bridget Phillipson, [UK] Minister for Women and Equalities, to persuade them to bring forward policy to create a publicly accessible nationwide register of stalkers, domestic abusers, sexual offenders and anyone convicted of killing their female partner. Up to a quarter of these men are repeat offenders and I believe women should have access to information about someone’s history of sexual violence, if they are considering dating them. This will save lives and is a vital step towards protecting women and girls.

Arch Hades, London, March 2026, by Maryam Eisler

CL: What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?

AH: Don’t get married. In fact, don’t even date anybody.

CL: What’s something that people don’t know about you?

AH: I’m an ordained minister. I’m not religious, I just enjoy officiating gay marriages.

Read more: A conversation with Claudio Laager

CL: What do you hope audiences take away from your work?

AH: I hope my art and poetry might become the “nail where your fate is liable to snag”. Like reading something you thought only happened to you, only to discover it happened to Byron 200 years ago. That recognition collapses time and liberates suffering and isolation. This is why art matters – because life matters.

Arch Hades’ solo exhibition, Return | Ritorno, runs from 7 May to 30 October 2026 at Scoletta Battioro e Tiraoro di Venezia

archhades.com

Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda, photographed by Simon de Pury

Artist, artisan, thinker: Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda hails from one of the most significant Venetian families and is a contemporary reincarnation of a Renaissance rebel, with looks and connections to match. He tells LUX his manifesto for 2026 and beyond

“From next year, I’m not going to be an entrepreneur, nor an artist or a designer – I’m just going to be me. There should be a new word, perhaps, to communicate all those personas in one – like a kind of Frankenstein.

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I suppose putting things into categories is part of life. But for me, there’ll be no more putting things into boxes or letting others define what I am.

“Moduli Luminosi” solo exhibition at David Gill, London, 2025

From next year, my direction is clear: I’m focusing on my artistic development – on developing my creative soul, my language. I think others should “feel” what you are.

My question has always been: why am I creating work for the public to see? Is it to express my feelings? To confront social injustices? The new work I’m putting together is an attempt to answer that question.

Read more: Arch Hades’ Return at the Venice Biennale

My creative process has three stages. It starts with confusion – with an existentialist question, such as, “what’s the point of life?” The answers can be infinite. Then I start writing answers and asking more questions, digging until I get an answer to investigate with intensity. This stage is rough. I write differently. My hands hurt from how tightly I press the pencil. Then comes the final stage: peace. That intensity dissolves into a line, shape, drawn in pastel. At that point I’ve answered my question. I feel complete.

White Pool glassware designed by Alvise De Mezzo, by Laguna~B, of which Brandolini d’Adda is Artistic Director

In my next work, glass is out. People always say, “glass is your passion”, but it has never been a material I’ve liked to express myself with. I want to understand what I am doing and why and communicate that to the public. For now, that means not using glass. It might eventually come back in another form, but it’s a question I hope this research will answer.

Read more: Jennifer Shorto’s highlights of the Cora Sheibani collection

This work is important to me. I never went to art school, so this process of realising what life and art should be comes entirely from within. It’s not something I’ve been taught.

Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda at work in his studio

Coming from a famous family can be a challenge. But I see it as an opportunity, a tool to communicate with the public and understand what might be useful to them. I can’t hold a conversation for more than 10 minutes. If I can do it through art, then maybe my background will become a “fuck you” to everyone.

Venice is in my DNA. It’s a city that gives me tranquillity, space. But I want my business to grow beyond that – to stand alone. I will have an atelier open to the public in Venice. You may see some glass, but also what’s next – perhaps performance, or sculpture, too.

lagunab.com

Arch Hades photographed in her studio by Eva Herzog

In her newest exhibition ‘Return | Ritorno’, the poet and artist Arch Hades has transformed the historic site of Scoletta Battioro e Tiraoro di Venezia into a stage for her artworks. Displayed amongst the building’s architecture, paintings, and sculpture, Arch Hades has created an immersive environment of large-scale works and soundscape for the 61st Venice Biennale

Follow LUX on Instagram: @luxthemagazine

Return | Ritorno  unfolds across three floors of the Scoletta Battioro e Tiraoro di Venezia, a decommissioned church on the Grand Canal in Venice. Photograph by Eva Herzog

Arch Hades uses fibreglass and acrylic polymer to create a ‘marble’ finish for her piece I want to return to the past but no one will be there, as part of her Confessions Series. Photograph by Eliot Gelberg-Wilson

Return, 2025. The centrepiece of the exhibition is a monumental 22-panel painting spanning 13 metres which pays homage to Greco-Roman sculpture. Photographed by Eva Herzog

LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai with Arch Hades at the opening of Return | Ritorno for the 61st Venice Biennale

Arch Hades combines her poetry with visual art in her display of Sphinx, 2026. Photography by Eva Herzog

Arch Hades, Rain, 2025, exhibited alongside the site-specific work of Scoletta Battioro e Tiraoro di Venezia. Photography by Eva Herzog

Exhibition details:

Return | Ritorno  
Scoletta Battioro e Tiraoro di Venezia
Supported by Erarta Foundation 
7 May - 30 October 2026 

archhades.com

A portrait of Umberta Beretta – philanthropist, art collector and LUX Contributing Editor – in situ

Philanthropist, collector and LUX Contributing Editor Umberta Gnutti Beretta is one of the leading lights of the Italian contemporary cultural scene.  As the 2026 Biennale takes off, the guest editor of our Venice Biennale Special section, who has a must-see private art space at her family’s factory in Brescia, shares her thoughts on contemporary artists she admires who have studied and created in Venice.

She also nominates four luminaries in the city’s cultural scene, who in turn share their thoughts on their creative and collecting practices, and on the latest artistic transformation of La Serenissima

Venice is historically the home of the events within the contemporary art ecosystem. Although the exhibition takes place every two years, the reasons that position Venice as a central hub for artists extend far beyond this recurring occasion.

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The city welcomes artists not only as visitors or privileged observers, but also as students and researchers. The Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia has long represented a fundamental educational context for many contemporary artistic practices. Among the artists who have developed a significant part of their trajectory there and who I admire are Giulia Andreani, Iva Lulashi and Marta Spagnoli, just to name a few.

Back to Earth, 2024, by Anastasiya Parvanova

For some, Venice does not remain a temporary experience, it becomes an existential and professional choice, a place in which to live and create.

Within this context, a visit to the walk-up studio of Giorgio Andreotta Calò, a native of Venice, is a key to understanding the profound relationship between artistic practice, urban space and the lagoon environment. Giorgio Andreotta Calò has spent time in Berlin and Amsterdam, but his studio remains in Venice.

Another Venice native is Chiara Enzo, a young painter who brings into her painting the dampness and the dim light of her city. Trained, like many others, in the classrooms of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, she has the ability to enchant you with her small canvases.

She was invited by curator Cecilia Alemani to take part in the Biennale The Milk of Dreams in 2022, and it was precisely there that I noticed her. I have not yet walked through her studio, but it sits firmly on my wish list: a room I do not yet know, and that I cannot wait to discover.

Calipso (Summer Solar Power), 2021, by Thomas Braida

And then there is Thomas Braida. He lives and works in Venice but was born in Gorizia, a borderland between Italy and Slovenia. He carries with him that silent geography. Extremely reserved in speech (he weighs his words), on canvas he opens up without restraint and his gesture becomes his narrative.

Anastasiya Parvanova comes from Bulgaria, where she studied visual arts and pedagogy. Venice welcomed her later, and she stayed.

Read more: Bentley by LUNAZ review

She paints spaces that do not exist, marginal presences, subjects that usually escape the eye, dreamlike universes. In her work, the invisible finds form. Just some of the fantastic painters to be discovered through the narrow calles of this magnificent city.

umbertagnuttiberetta.com

Adele Re Rebaudengo, President of the Venice Gardens Foundation

Adele Re Rebaudengo – President, Venice Gardens Foundation

The foundation of Adele Re Rebaudengo has restored both the Royal Gardens of Venice and the Convent Garden of the Most Holy Redeemer, with both open to the public

In 2010, I moved to Venice to devote myself gardens. In 2014, I co-founded the Venice Gardens Foundation to restore gardens in difficulty, bringing them back to their beauty.

The restored gardens of the Capuchin friars of the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, Guidecca

This is not only to protect the city’s landscape, botanical and architectural heritage, but to affirm the fundamental role that gardens play in a community. Seeing gardens cared for by the Foundation now used again with joy and love fuels my commitment. As living beings, gardens should not be neglected, but accompanied along their path of growth with care and attention.

Read more: A tasting of Joseph Phelps wines with Maison President David Pearson

Italy is known for the art of gardening, a body of knowledge that combines aesthetics, culture and a passionate understanding of nature. It is a heritage of contemporary relevance, telling the story of the symbiotic relationship between ourselves and the landscape.

The restored Royal Gardens of Venice, adjacent to San Marco

Being heirs to this history brings a responsibility to preserve, expand and pass it on. Gardens are more than ornamental spaces: they unfold horizons – of life, memory and relationships, giving communities a greater opportunity for wellbeing than any other space.

In Venice, there are many gardens to rediscover, sheltered behind high walls, concealed within ancient palace courtyards or scattered among the narrow streets. They represent a precious presence for the city and help ensure its balance and harmony, but many require conservation work to continue to occupy their central place in the Venetian urban fabric. No community exists without a space to inhabit, because it is itself a dimension, a place; by restoring green areas, we give it the opportunity to take root. Even if gardens do not seem functional, they are essential.

venicegardensfoundation.org

Petra de Castro with Vladimir Kartashov in his Pietrasanta atelier

Petra de Castro – Patron, collector and writer

Among her current projects, Petra de Castro has a new book and is supporting Vladimir Kartashov’s installation “Sequences of Time” at San Clemente, Venice, during the Biennale

Each time I ask myself where my passion for literature, art and music comes from, the images that come to my mind are those when, aged seven or eight, I would spend twilight afternoons at the home of a very old couple, who had lost their newborn baby during the Second World War and had “adopted” me as a kind of granddaughter.

It was this couple who taught me that music must be listened to attentively, who would sit me by their gramophone to listen to Mozart and who took me to the opera to see Madama Butterfly.

Petra de Castro’s home with works by Jean-Marie Appriou and a ceiling painting by Kartashov (represented by Gowen, Geneva, since 2025)

They had me read the stories of Tolstoy out loud, and look at the paintings of Cézanne, Monet and Renoir, tell them what I saw in the paintings and then copy them.

Those days of a faraway past made me understand that the universe of literature, art, music and the humanities corresponded to my own emotional understanding. I went on to study French modern literature, German and Philosophy. I did theatre and played the piano.

Read more: Passenger Princess in the Aston Martin DBX S

I worked in dramaturgy at the Schauspielhaus Frankfurt. I did graphic and event design, and window settings for a renowned Swiss watch manufacturer. I wrote a book about Pier Paolo Pasolini’s summer journey of 1959, La Lunga Strada di Sabbia, to be published this September.

From being an art lover I became an art patron and collector, with a vision of a Gesamtkunstwerk of my own in Venice, for my private art collection, Antigone’s Tales, to find a home. The idea of storytelling within the works in my collection is very much interweaved with the history of Venice and with the theme of Vladimir Khartashov’s installation, “Sequences of Time”. This Gesamtkunstwerk will be my life’s achievement and I trust in the process.

Nicoletta Fiorucci – Founder, Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation

Collector Nicoletta Fiorucci founded her eponymous foundation to promote experimentation in art focusing on radical, interdisciplinary and community-oriented ideas, with a Venice venue opened in 2025

Sharing experiences with artists has always been my starting point. I’m drawn to artists who sense shifts in culture, ecology and politics, articulating what feels intangible or unresolved. In a moment defined by speed and distraction, I value contexts in which an artistic practice can unfold slowly and rigorously, and artists who champion that. Art can offer a different tempo, one that encourages reflection instead of consumption.

The Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation grew out of a desire to support artists in a way that feels attentive and long-term. It is about possibility rather than preservation, about creating the conditions for risk, experimentation and sustained thinking. I’m motivated by dialogue: the conversations between artist and curator, idea and space, visitor and time. Those exchanges often become more meaningful than the object itself. Ultimately, what drives me is the belief that artists help us rehearse possible futures. By supporting their research and experimentation, I hope to contribute to a cultural environment that is inclusive and forward-looking.

The foundation is conceived as a long-term commitment, thus my strategy is intentionally patient. I am interested in sustained relationships with artists, curators and researchers, creating a context where ideas can develop over time. The aim is to build trust, to offer a space where artists feel supported enough to take risks. That may mean site-responsive projects, research-based work or installations that respond directly to Venice’s architecture or history. I’m less interested in spectacle and more in depth.

The exterior of the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation, a former 15th-century palazzo in Dorsoduro

Living in Venice has always been my dream, and not just for her beauty. Venice is a city of paradox: fragile yet resilient, historic yet continually reinvented. It has always been shaped by exchange: of goods, cultures, ideas. That openness feels essential to contemporary artistic dialogue. At the same time, Venice embodies urgency. Questions of climate change and preservation are very tangible realities. Working in Venice means engaging with vulnerability in a direct way. The city demands sensitivity, to water, to light, to material decay, to histories layered over centuries. Venice also slows you down. Its scale and geography encourage attentiveness. This rhythm aligns with my desire to create exhibitions that unfold gradually and invite reflection. 

Read more: Grand Hotel Kronenhof Pontresina Review

Rather than competing with the city’s grandeur, I see the foundation’s role as contributing thoughtfully to its ongoing narrative. Venice does not need more content; it needs meaningful layers. By working here, I hope to participate in a dialogue between past and future, acknowledging history while making space for contemporary voices. Over time, I hope the foundation becomes a point of connection, linking Venice to international conversations while remaining grounded in its local context, a space of inquiry where ecological, social and cultural questions can be explored through artistic practice. Success for me would mean that artists see the foundation as a place of dialogue, where experimentation is encouraged. 

The foundation is located in Dorsoduro, which has a quieter, more residential rhythm, slightly removed from the spectacle associated with major art events. That intimate scale has shaped the way people experience the exhibitions. Visitors tend to stay longer. Artists often feel comfortable inhabiting the space more fully. The atmosphere encourages proximity, between the artwork and the viewer, and between visitors themselves. I have discovered how much people value spaces that feel personal rather than institutional. The foundation’s setting allows for a different kind of encounter: less about circulation, more about presence. It has also reinforced the importance of context. In Dorsoduro, the architecture, light and surrounding community become part of the exhibition. The experience feels less like attending an event and more like entering into a shared moment of reflection. That sense of closeness has been one of the most rewarding discoveries. 

To Love and Devour, 2025, by Tolia Astakhishvili, exhibition view of a site-specific installation at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist

The projects that have meant the most to me are those where the artist truly inhabited the space: physically and conceptually. The most memorable exhibitions of the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation, and before that the Fiorucci Art Trust, were not necessarily the most visible, but the ones that generated sustained dialogue and emotional resonance. I am especially moved by projects that embrace vulnerability, works that explore memory, displacement, ecology or personal history. When an exhibition becomes an atmosphere rather than simply a display, I feel it creates a deeper connection. 

Meaningful projects are often collaborative in spirit. They involve trust between artist and curator, and a willingness to adapt to the specificities of the place in which they happen. These moments reaffirm why the foundation exists: to create the conditions for thoughtful experimentation. Rather than identifying a single highlight, I value the cumulative process, the gradual building of relationships and ideas.  

Each project adds a layer to the foundation’s evolving identity. The exhibition from May to November 2026 is by Lydia Ourahmane, curated by Polly Staple. What excites me about this collaboration is its sensitivity to context. Lydia Ourahmane’s practice often engages with absence, infrastructure and invisible systems that shape everyday life. Her work carries both political depth and emotional subtlety, which feels particularly resonant in Venice. Polly Staple brings a curatorial approach that is rigorous yet spacious. I anticipate an exhibition that fosters atmosphere, listening and architectural response over immediate spectacle. It may not offer easy conclusions, but it will likely generate questions about place, movement and the systems that underpin contemporaneity. I hope visitors will feel invited to slow down and reflect. 

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A portrait of Luca Bombassei, an architect who synthesises the ancient and contemporary

Luca Bombassei – Architect, entrepreneur and collector

The practice and projects of Luca Bombassei operate at the intersection of past and future, exemplified in his recently acquired and restored apartment in the Palazzo Contarini Corfù, which overlooks the Grand Canal

Read more: Hotel Balzac Paris review

I grew up in an environment where things were made to last, not to impress but to age well and to carry meaning over time. Collecting art and supporting projects comes from this same place: it’s a way of staying intellectually alive, of engaging with ideas that challenge me rather than reassure me. I’m drawn to works and projects that take risks, that may even feel uncomfortable at first but that are grounded in intelligence, craft and intention. What truly drives me is curiosity guided by responsibility. 

A main bedroom view, with art by Alex Katz and Ettore Sottsass

I don’t really believe in fixed strategies. I believe in direction, in intuition and in the ability to change course when something more interesting appears. My goal is not to build a “collection” in the traditional sense, but a constellation of projects, places and relationships that reflect how I think and live. If there is a method, it’s to avoid repetition, to stay alert and to accept that coherence is not a value in itself. As I often say, coherence is for people who have run out of ideas, what matters more to me is intellectual honesty. 

I love the past for its discipline and confidence. There was a belief in knowledge, in materials and in the responsibility of form. At the same time, I’m deeply interested in the future, not as an abstract promise but as a space of experimentation: new technologies, new ways of living, new cultural models. In my work, these two forces coexist naturally. Tradition gives me a foundation; the future gives me permission to take risks. I don’t work with nostalgia, but with memory – there’s an important difference. 

A living-room view of Luca Bombassei’s Venetian apartment, with metal bookcase by Bombassei and painting by Nathlie Provosty

What excites me most are projects that sit in between definitions. I’m working on initiatives where architecture becomes a framework for cultural exchange rather than a finished object; projects where the past is not staged or idealised but questioned and activated. They are complex, sometimes even contradictory, but that’s exactly where I feel most at home.  

Living in Venice has taught me that nothing truly belongs to you. A palazzo is not a trophy, it’s a responsibility. The city itself is a lesson in adaptability: Venice has survived for centuries not by resisting change, but by absorbing it intelligently. I’ve learnt that beauty is something you practise every day through care, through use, through attention. Venice also teaches restraint: knowing when to intervene, and when to step back. 

Venice doesn’t need to be saved, it needs to be understood. Its future doesn’t lie in spectacle or nostalgia, but in serious cultural work, education and long-term thinking. I still believe Venice can be a laboratory – not for trends, but for ideas; a place where history and contemporaneity do not cancel each other out but challenge one another. Being part of that tension is what keeps the city, and my work, alive. 

lucabombassei.com

In our latest print issue we covered the preview week of the world’s most celebrated art biennale, which brought artists, collectors, institutional leaders, philanthropists, curators and the merely curious for a whirlwind of parties across the ancient city. All photographed by Darius Sanai using a vintage Nikon Coolpix ultra-compact

Esben Weile Kjaer and Lucca Hue-Williams

Maria Sukkar and Emin Mammadov

Maryam Eisler

Yana Peel

Hans Ulrich Obrist, Eun-Me Ahn and Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

Darius Sanai and Ralph Rugoff

Yamini Mehta and Nada Raza

Durjoy Rahman and Vinita Agarwal

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Samantha Welsh, Jessica Hartley and Lee Sharrock

Carolina Conforti, François-Laurent Renet and Hamlet the dog

Shaan Shahani

Read more: Armando Testa at the Venice Biennale 2024

Nick Chu and Marton Nemes

Read more: Artists In Conversation: Michelangelo Pistoletto and Pascale Marthine Tayou with Maryam Eisler

Oli Epp and Javier Martinez

Stefanie Sauska and Julia Mechtler

Bernardo Pereira and Djoser Botelho Braz

Ana Helena Pires, Sandra Hegedus, Maguy Etlin and Vanessa Tubino

Marie-Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre and Laure Martin

Roman Schramm, Petroc Sesti, Emilie Pugh and Tracey Ryans

Glicéria Tupinambá

Nadja Romain

Masha Nosova, Fabienne Amez-Droz, Isabella Fergusson

The late Armando Testa founded Studio Armando Testa, one Italy’s largest agencies, in 1956.

Armando Testa is the greatest 20th-century design figure you’ve never heard of. Armando’s creations, straddling design and art, were groundbreaking and epoch-defining, but suffering from snobbery on the part of the high-art world towards what was and still is considered the lowlier and more commercial discipline of design. A new show at the Venice Biennale, conceived by Gemma Testa, Founder of Acacia Foundation, and curated by London’s Design Museum Director Tim Marlow, seeks to redress the balance. Here, Testa and Marlow discuss Armando’s legacy in a conversation moderated by LUX and edited by Isabella Fergusson

LUX: Gemma, why did you collaborate with Tim Marlow in curating the Armando Testa retrospective at the Venice Biennale this year?

Gemma Testa: I wanted to enable the work of Armando to become internationally known. Tim seemed an excellent choice, with his deep knowledge of both contemporary art and design.

Meat Chair, by Armando Testa, 1978.

LUX: Tim, what made you interested in the project?

Tim Marlow: This is one of the most important Italian artists in post-war and visual culture whom I didn’t know enough about, and many others like me don’t. The chance to explore and shed light on someone who beautifully straddles the worlds of graphic design and art, advertising and popular culture and supposed fine art was a wonderful opportunity.

Advertisement for Pirelli tyres, Armando Testa, 1954

LUX: Could you tell us about Testa’s significance?

TM: Armando was utterly radical from the beginning. He trained, learned painting, visual arts, art history, graphic design and advertising. He was a pop artist before Pop Art had even been invented. He understood the distilled language of Minimalism – look at his work in the 1940s and 50s before Minimalism existed. But he also understood that visual culture was a means of communication. There is this extraordinary creative trajectory that straddles very different worlds. His favourite word is ‘synthesis’.

GT: The main difficulty for Armando, for many years, was the lack of a proper gallery to represent him. Advertising is seen simply as commerce. Galleria Continua asked me to present Armando. This is a great opportunity to let his work gain recognition – he always believed in the great connection between art and advertising. While working on campaigns, he asked me many times, “What do you think about this?” I’d answer, “What is the aim? What are you working for? Who is the client?” and he’d answer, “You have to look at the sign; you have to look at the mark, at the drawing itself.” He has always understood and believed that there is a link between these two disciplines – advertising and art.

Tango Caliente, by Armando Testa

LUX: What are your purposes for the Venice exhibition?

TM: It’s the need and opportunity to present Armando’s works to a new audience, art scene and culture. The natural place for Testa – as a designer and as an artist – might be the Architecture Biennale, which is porous, looking at all sorts of disciplines. But it is decisive and important that it opens during the Art Biennale. Though the art world talks of porosity, it can be very territorial, and it can be a little defensive about people who come from disciplines other than the art world itself. Armando genuinely had a symbiotic relationship between the two. Even artists like Michelangelo Pistoletto – who studied at Armando’s design school – felt the importance of Armando as an artist and, as he put it, a “genius ad man”.

“Punt e Mes”, by Armando Testa, 1974

LUX: Gemma, how do you respond to that?

GT: Yes, some friends of mind suggested that I present Armando to the Architecture Biennale, but I felt that this could have limited his position. And there is a generation who know none of his works as an artist: this is who the exhibition is for.

TM: The great ‘Punt e Mes’ campaign is a very condensed example of why Testa is so brilliant – his sphere, half-sphere piece. It is a pun on the name ‘Punt e Mes’ [‘Point and a Half’]. It is a visual pun on a sphere and a half-sphere. He paints it. He makes a sculpture of it as well as a poster of it. He interrogates it in every way and makes it universal. An advertising campaign for Vermouth, using an Italian dialect, ought only to resonate with a specifically Italian audience, but it doesn’t. That is what we want to show.

LUX: How would Armando wish to be remembered following the Biennale? As an artist, a designer, or something else?

GT: Perhaps he would want to be remembered more as a creative, a multidisciplinary artist than an advertiser or a designer; the exhibition represents all the shades of his creative universe.

Exhibition Armando Testa is at the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna Ca’ Pesaro, Venice, 20 April-15 September 2024

capesaro.visitmuve.it

An NFT from Tezos

They’re being shown at Basel, included in Venice: let’s see what the data tells us about NFTs and their long-term potential. Our contributing editor and columnist Sophie Neuendorf looks into it

Sophie Neuendorf

At this point, I believe that most of you will have heard of the phenomenon that’s taken the art world by storm: Non-Fungible Tokens, better known as NFTs. Ever since Christie’s sold that now famous NFT by artist Beeple for $69 Million in March 2021, this nascent category has grown exponentially. Over the past year, something like $44 billion has been spent on about 6 million NFTs, usually issued to certify digital creations but sometimes for physical objects such as paintings and sculptures.

The popularity of NFTs can be attributed to several factors. Primarily, it can be attributed to the rapid digitalisation of the art industry. Now, more and more artists, collectors, and professionals are comfortable with browsing, interacting and transacting online. This coincides with the cultural shift to the metaverse, which is a digital copy of the real world. It’s unsurprising that the metaverse should include fine art and collectibles, given that luxury fashion brands such as Gucci, Prada or Ralph Lauren are also represented.

Jimmy Fallon’s NFT by Bored Ape Yacht Club

But how can one identify ‘good’ or ‘bad’ NFTs and NFT artists? How do we know which NFTs are a good investment? This process is not much different to that of traditional art: after a period of time, a selection of NFT artists will crystallise as those that are most in- demand and desired. This may be a reflection of tastes and preferences but also of the zeitgeist and, most importantly, of who collects them. Many of us look to tastemakers and well known gallerists or collectors to see what they are buying, then use that information to help us form an opinion.

As one does before committing to a traditional work of art, it’s important to research prices and comparables before purchasing an NFT, as the market for NFTs has evolved and changed rapidly, even within the past year.

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As you can see from the graph, the prices for NFTs appreciated rapidly from the spring of 2021. However, since the end of last year, NFT prices have experienced a correction – the average transaction value has decreased substantially. This is in no way a reflection of the long-term viability and value of NFTs as a collecting category, but can be interpreted as the stabilisation of the market. Much more volatile than other assets or collectibles, such as contemporary art or gold, NFTs also suffer from price fluctuations due to the changeable nature of cryptocurrencies. Additionally, as it’s a new category, speculators may see it as less viable and secure as an investment in comparison to traditional blue-chip categories (as demonstrated below, on this page) – as yet, in terms of art as an investment, postwar and contemporary art, for example, are seen as much more secure than the nascent NFTs.

Yuga Labs is the company that is responsible for the extremely pricey ‘Bored Ape Yacht Club’ NFT series. At the beginning of this year, they announced the acquisition of the intellectual property behind their rival Larva Labs’ CryptoPunks and Meebits projects. This means that now three of the world’s most important crypto companies are under one blockchain-supported roof. Yuga Labs thus attempts a novel solution to a riddle facing more and more art professionals in this era of Instagram-ready immersive installations, branded merchandise, and fractionalised ownership: how do you turn a niche obsession into a mainstream phenomenon?

One of 10,000 avatar NFTs created by Azuki

Yuga Labs’ answer is to grant direct financial incentives to NFT owners to help the company build – and market – a creative universe around its tentpole intellectual property (IP). The move makes an expensive category accessible to a potentially much wider fan base. Despite the correction in transaction value, these popular NFTs are still expensive. The cheapest Meebit now costs about 5.6 ETH ($14,500). The floor price for a CryptoPunk is about 75 ETH ($195,000). Bored Apes sell for at least 97 ETH ($250,000).

Read more: Maryam Eisler On Tim Yip’s ‘Love Infinity’

‘Rebirth’ by Beeple

This new development answers the question of how to build a broad fan base for IP in such short supply, and with such impressive price tags: create derivative works available at low costs. Think of the Basquiat estate licensing the artist’s imagery for Uniqlo T-shirts. The difference is that Yuga Labs is outsourcing this task to NFT owners, rather than proliferating the Punks, Meebits, and Apes in house. Yuga Labs will give direct financial incentives to NFT owners to help the company build and market a creative universe. Or, to compare it to the traditional art world: create prints off of original works on canvas for a fraction of the price.

NFTs have already been shown at major fairs, such as Art Basel. This year’s Venice Biennale is showing NFTs in the Cameroon Pavilion. Galleries and museums, such as the Uffizi and Belvedere, are issuing NFTs of their Old Master and modern paintings. With auction houses such as Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Artnet auctions regularly offering NFTs, it’s only a matter of time until they are less of a novelty and more fully integrated in the traditional art industry.

Sophie Neuendorf is Vice-President at Artnet

This article first appears in the Summer 2022 issue of LUX

Nicholas Party portrait, 2022

In our ongoing online monthly series, LUX’s editors, contributors, and friends pick their must-see exhibitions from around the globe

Umberta Beretta, philanthropist, art collector and curator

I would recommend Nicolas Party’s exhibition at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milano. I am directly involved and partially sponsored the exhibition. It is called Triptych. Nicolas party produced eleven new works all inspired by the old masters at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. The exposition has been organised in partnership with Kaufmann Repetto gallery and will run until the end of June. In the museum Nicolas Party was especially impressed by Mariotto Albertinelli‘s triptych. The exhibition is very respectful of the museum but very connected to the surrounding works.

Nicolas Party’s exhibition at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan is showing until June 27 2022

Together with the triptychs, the artist created six oval works inspired by his beloved Rosalba Carriera, an author also present in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. This exhibition is a chance to see how contemporary art can very well be inspired by the works of the past and of how a brilliant contemporary artist can create something totally new whilst giving homage to the ancient.

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The artist has been very generous with sharing what inspired him and by making some very clear references that can be followed whilst looking at the exhibition. It is a great chance to see something new and discover something old at the same time.

Cheryl Newman, artist, curator and photography consultant

I’m running a workshop in Norway in a couple of weeks so will finally get inside the 60-meter-high new Munch Museum on Oslo’s trendy waterfront. Love it or hate it, this recycled concrete and steel sustainable building is a long-awaited landmark and new home for the enormous collection of Norway’s greatest painter.

Munch museum, Oslo

Munch was a progressive and challenging artist, so it seems apt that his new home should incite a bit of debate. I have been moved by Munch’s depictions of loneliness and death since my student days, so I’ll head straight to the Sick Child paintings. Munch’s work is unflinching and confronts the fragility and anxiety of human consciousness which is as relevant now as when Munch was a contemporary.

One of Munch’s most renowned paintings ‘The Scream’ on display at the Munch museum

It’s also interesting to see Munch shown with artists directly influenced by his work and if you are in Vienna before June 19th, In Dialogue at The Albertina includes work by Peter Doig, Tracy Emin, Georg Baselitz and Marlene Dumas that refer to Munch’s themes and you can see profound responses by the artists included.

Tracey Emin’s work on display at the ‘In Dialogue’ exhibition at The Albertina in Vienna

Closer to home, I am yet to visit artist and activist Poulomi Basu’s powerful work, Fireflies at Autograph gallery in London. Poulomi is a powerful force, advocating for the rights of marginalised women through political documentary and complex storytelling. Her unflinching images are at once both dreadful and seductive. Curated by Bindi Vora, in this multimedia exhibition, Poulomi turns the camera on herself and her mother, to express patriarchal violence, resistance and solidarity with her female subjects. I am expecting a challenging and provocative exhibition.

Poulomi Basu’s ‘Fireflies’ at Autograph

I’ll also be heading to a group show at the Nunnery Gallery in Bow, a free public gallery that supports local emerging artists. ME 2 U: A Collective Manifesto is a lesson in how to maintain a healthy positivity in the complex world we inhabit. It will include a young painter whose work I love, Lindsey Mclean.

Lindsey Mclean’s ‘Faux Stairs’ showing at Bow Arts

Lindsey’s work disrupts the historical representation of femininity and women in painting. She uses recurring motifs such as fans, veils and feather boas to obscure the gaze within the work. Her paintings are rich and complex, mixing textures and jewel like colours.

Candida Gertler OBE, Co-Founder, Co-Director and Trustee at Outset Contemporary Art Fund

My best kept secret for the most rewarding visit to any Biennale is to go after the opening week! It’s true, you might miss the glamorous opening parties and the opportunity to see many familiar faces from around the globe, but you are abundantly compensated by the unparalleled experience of enjoying art the way it’s meant to be seen – with enough space to breathe!

Simone Leigh’s ‘Brick House’ on show as part of ‘The Milk of Dreams’ at the Venice Biennale

Having just returned from my first art trip with Outset Partners (a philanthropic body that grants experimental forms of funding to transformational projects) since the start of the pandemic, my fears of being confronted with the ‘same old, same old’ whilst in an entirely different, post-pandemic world were allayed. The 59th Venice Biennale, curated by Cecilia Alemani, addresses our collective desire to reconnect to the basic elements – even bringing a field of fragrant earth into the display- and embraces in some of the pavilions and external exhibitions technology in all its augmented and extended forms (a characteristic that defines our ‘new normal’) giving us a insight into the nee phygital era.

Loukia Alavanou, still shot from ‘Oedipus in Search of Colonus’

The Milk of Dreams exhibition in the Arsenale is the most elegantly curated exhibition I can remember in a long time. Each section of the long stretch of installations felt like a fully formed museum show in its own right, giving the – mainly female – artists the consideration and attention to detail that both they and the public deserve. Between the main exhibition, the national pavilions, and the collateral programme, just the right mix of well established and emerging artists were represented: from Barbara Kruger’s temple-like installation of warning texts Untitled (Beginning/Middle/End) in her signature style in the Arsenale, to the fantastic Greek Pavilion Oedipus in Search of Colonus by Loukia Alavanou. There – equipped with my goggles and a swivelling chair to anchor me – I took my front row, immersive seat to a mesmerising journey where ancient Greek tragedy meets futuristic virtual reality.

Although there is so much more to choose from the collateral programme – like the monumental Kiefer exhibition at the Palazzo Duclae; the wonderful Parasol Unit show at the Music Academy with Oliver Beer’s fantastic musical installation in the palazzo’s chapel; and the Ugandan and the Côte d’Ivoire Pavilions scattered around Venice – for me, the one unmissable exhibition is Udo Kittelmann and Taryn Simon’s exquisite Human Brains: It all Begins with an Idea at the Fondazione Prada.

Read more: A new photography prize for sustainability is launched

The design alone of this mammoth endeavour deserves a whole pride of golden lions, and the way the curation traverses the centuries of brain research through the lense of artists, illustrators, scientists and writers left me feeling equal parts satisfied and eager to learn more – like a student and a scholar simultaneously. Just as the entire biennale was a journey between the known and unknown, what more can one ask for

Clara Hastrup, artist

As I’ll be traveling to Copenhagen at the end of this month, the exhibition I’m really looking forward to seeing is Haegue Yang: Double Soul at Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark (until July 31). Yang has an incredible visual language and works with a wide range of materials to create her sculptures and immersive environments.

Haegue Yang’s ‘Double Soul’ at Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark

She uses everything from venetian blinds, bells, drying racks to pompoms and artificial flowers, transforming and abstracting these familiar objects into surreal and chaotic landscapes where you can either get lost or find new meanings.

LUX Editorial Team

This month we suggest visiting the White Box gallery at the Nobu Hotel London Portman Square. Currently on show are the works and submission statements of the winner and runners up of the Louis Roederer Photography Prize.

The Louis Roederer Photography Prize for Sustainability exhibition at The White Box space at Nobu Hotel London Portman Square. On show until May 29 2022.

The winner of the inaugural Prize is Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, who’s works come from her collection ‘Behold the Ocean’, where she focuses on the detrimental effects of ocean acidification. Runner up Jasper Goodall’s use of colour and light in his photographs, bring you into a fairy-tale like landscape evoking reverence for nature. Adu-Sanyah’s and Goodall’s works are juxtaposed with Sahab Zaribaf’s meditations on the relationship between humans and nature.

Marlene Dumas, ‘Betrayal’ (1994). Private collection, courtesy David Zwirner. Photo by Emma Estwic. © Marlene Dumas

As VIPs swarm to Venice for the pre-opening week of the Biennale, LUX columnist Sophie Neuendorf gives her tips for visiting the all-consuming art event, the biggest of the year

Sophie Neuendorf

There is something magical about Venice. No matter what time of the year one travels to the historical city, it’s always a delight. Though, it’s especially lovely during the opening week of Biennale.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have visited Biennale several times already, and always thoroughly enjoyed rushing from one exhibition or event to another.

During my last, pre-pandemic visit to Biennale, a renowned art fair director, who somehow never received a VIP card to the opening (and who shall remain nameless), showed me where I could possibly gain illicit entry by jumping over a fence.

During another visit, a well-known gallerist showed me how he uses the service corridors and stairs to gain secret entry into the parties at the Bauer Hotel.

Bruce Nauman, ‘Contrapposto Studies’, installation view at Punta della Dogana, Venice (2021). Jointly owned by Pinault Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo by Marco Cappelletti. © Palazzo Grassi, Venice. © Bruce Nauman by SIAE, Rome, 2021.

Aside from those shenanigans, there are many sites, exhibitions, museums, and, of course, parties to visit during the opening week.

It is most likely that one won’t be able to see everything on offer during the Biennale, so it’s wise to pick and choose beforehand. As previous Biennale director Massimiliano Gioni said, “The fact that people are still congregating periodically to look at art made in 80+ countries around  the world, there is a kind of madness to it. So, I say, embrace the madness.”

The opening of Biennale di Venezia is on April 23, and the extravaganza is curated by art world veteran, Cecilia Alemani. Alemani is the fifth woman to curate the show in the biennale’s 127 year history. In 2017, she curated the Italian pavilion—the largest national pavilion on site—which she said gave her a “definite advantage.”

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The exhibition is titled The Milk of Dreams, after a book by Surrealist artist and author Leonora Carrington, which Alemani describes as “very simple, very joyful, but also quite macabre.”

The exhibition suggests a fitting bit of symmetry with our own moment: the Surrealist movement emerged in 1924 just after the end of World War I, in part as a reaction against totalitarianism and militarisation.

The 2022 exhibition focuses on the many inquiries that saturate the sciences, arts, and myths of our time – “How is the definition of ‘the human’ changing? What constitutes life, and what differentiates plant and animal, human and non-human? What are our responsibilities towards the planet, other people, and other life forms? And what would life look like without us?”

The Ca’ d’Oro, or Palazzo Santa Sofia, is a palace on the Grand Canal in Venice where a group of significant Renaissance sculptures will be on display during the Venice Biennale

These are some of the guiding queries for this edition of the Biennale Arte, which concentrates on three thematic areas in particular: the representation of bodies and their metamorphoses; the relationship between individuals and technology; the connection between bodies and the Earth.

Among many highlights, this year’s edition will be showcasing NFT artists, such as Kevin Abosch and Eduardo Kac among several others, for the very first time – courtesy of the Cameroon Pavilion. This year also marks the first time the United Kingdom has chosen a black female artist to represent the country at the Biennale: Sonia Boyce.

In response to the nomination, Boyce commented “I do think part of the question, as it is posed to me, is about [how] I’m black and British, and what does it mean to “carry the flag”? It will be interesting to see how she tackles this immense and multi-facetted question.

Read more: The LUX Art Diary: Exhibitions to See in April

Outside the Biennale, worth visiting is the multi-sensory work by Danish artist Jeppe Hein. The fruit of French champagne house Ruinart’s fifth artist residency (previous collaborations included Vik Muniz and David Shrigley). The work is inspired by the maison’s residency’s chalky, sun-dappled terroir.

The renowned Palazzo Grassi is showing work by South African artist Marlene Dumas, curated by Caroline Bourgeois. It will show works from 1984 through today, with many previously unseen masterpieces. Her work focuses on human figures dealing with the most intense emotions and paradoxes.

Irish NFT artist Kevin Abosch

While you’re there, don’t miss the Bruce Nauman show, which is an homage to the influential contemporary artist. Awarded the Golden Lion at the 2009 Biennale di Venezia, the show brings together old and recent works, some of which have never been exhibited in Europe.

One of my favourites is the Palazzo Fortuny, a beautiful palace and museum. It was constructed between 1460 and 1480, commissioned by a Venetian nobleman. Today, it houses a wonderful collection of masterpieces.

This year, Colnaghi Gallery is collaborating with the Direzione regionale Musei Veneto and Venetian Heritage to present a group of significant Renaissance sculptures at Ca’ d’Oro. An exquisite Gothic jewel, the Ca’ d’Oro is the most famous Gothic building in Venice after the Doges Palace. It was hugely admired by Ruskin, who recorded its facade in a beautiful watercolour in 1845. The exhibition will include works by the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance, including Donatello, Lombardo, and Rovezzano.

The whole city is a work of art, with many yet-to-be-discovered treasures. After surviving the pandemic, discovering art from 80 different countries is a call to live and let live.

Sophie Neuendorf is Vice President at artnet. 

Bellini’s Pietà at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, which Beretta helped restore

The role of philanthropy has never been more urgent, and is reflected in our ongoing online series. Here, Umberta Beretta outlines her work around women’s rights and art for the many

Beretta was born into a family of prominent industrialists in northern Italy and is married to Franco Beretta, who leads the famed gunmakers. For the past two decades she has been active in fund-raising for numerous non-profit organisations and foundations with a focus on art, including her work for the Italian pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale and the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan; medical charities, including cancer research through the Fondazione Beretta, of which she is a board member, and the Essere Bambino foundation; and on social causes such as campaigning against violence against women. The Beretta family’s involvement in art is notable also for Christo’s 2016 project The Floating Piers, which connected the shore of Lake Iseo with the island of San Paolo, owned by the Berettas, with fabric-covered walkways.

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LUX: Where did your interest in philanthropy in the arts come from?
Umberta Beretta: I have always had an interest in the arts. My father Giorgio Gnutti often took me to museums or when visiting artists’ studios. My grandmother (on my mother’s side) pushed me to do volunteer work. Art is my passion and the time I dedicate to less fortunate people or causes is my way of giving back.

Umberta Beretta photographed by Lady Tarin

LUX: Which art projects are exciting you?
Umberta Beretta: The past year has been very complicated and frustrating, but I very much look forward to the Venice Biennale [due to take place 23 April to 27 November 2022] curated by Cecilia Alemani. I admire women who do well in the arts. My hometown of Brescia and Bergamo will be Italian Capital of Culture in 2023, so we are planning a series of cultural activities and that’s quite exciting.

LUX: How important are private and philanthropic support for the arts?
Umberta Beretta: They’re both crucial. In Italy this still has yet to be fully understood. Individuals should be given more tax incentives [to donate]. But it is in our culture to promote beauty so against all odds I think Italy will always be a motor for the arts.

Beretta with the Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama

LUX: How has the pandemic affected the arts in Italy?
Umberta Beretta: Tourists will always come to visit our museums. What concerns me most is the impact the pandemic will have on young, lesser-known artists, whose opportunities have frozen. And the same can be said for emerging fashion designers.

Read more: Meet the new generation of artisanal producers

LUX: What else can be done to support women’s rights?
Umberta Beretta: We can start by educating our children. I try with my son every day. All boys should be taught to respect women and all girls should be taught to demand respect. Women have the right to express themselves freely like men. In the art world, for example, women should be free to express their views on sexuality without scaring the public away. In everyday life they should be able to be mothers and have a career at the same time.

Beretta with the artist Christo in his New York studio

LUX: What project has pleased you most?
Umberta Beretta: Definitely Christo’s Floating Piers. Winning the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award in 2015 for Italy. Restoring some of the masterpieces of the Museo Poldi Pezzoli through the Restoration Club… I could go on.

For more information, visit: umbertagnuttiberetta.com

This article was originally published in the Summer 2021 Issue. 

Building Bridges (at the Venice Biennale 2019) by Lorenzo Quinn

Italian artist Lorenzo Quinn has been commissioned to create artworks for the likes of the Vatican, the State of Qatar, and the Venice Biennale. Here, the sculptor speaks to Charlie Newman about poetry, the symbolism of hands, and durability.

Lorenzo Quinn

1. Can you talk us through your creative process from the conception of an idea to the finished piece?

Once I feel the inspiration, I begin by drawing a sketch of the idea. This sketch might change many times until I feel it is right. Then I make a model in my studio, this model could also vary from the sketch as I go. Finally, when I am satisfied with the model, we proceed to cast the piece in metal.

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2. How does your approach differ when you’re working on public art compared to smaller sculptures?

The approach is the same, apart from when we are considering a sculpture with large dimensions, we also have to consider the public safety implications, engineering and durability. We might choose different materials or different ways of constructing and engineering the sculpture.

3. What compels you to sculpt the human body, and specifically, hands?

I choose hands because I want to have a dialogue with the public, to have a conversation, and we have to do [this] through a common language. If I did abstract art, it would be a monologue, not a dialogue. The hands allow me to get closer to the public through a language that everybody understands and relates to.

Support by Lorenzo Quinn

4. Do you have a preferred medium to work with?

Metals, especially bronze because of its durability.

Read more: Knight Frank’s 2020 Wealth Report focuses on insights for UHNWIs

5. You often pair poetry with your sculptures. How do you feel this contributes to the work?

I don’t conceive of one without the other. I need poetry to make the artwork or else it would be just a three-dimensional piece. I have always believed, nonetheless, that my sculptures need to go beyond that and into the fourth dimension, which is connecting with people and with the actual artwork. It’s about finding something beyond the physical, and poetry does that very well for me.

The Force of Nature I by Lorenzo Quinn

6. Which artists have been most influential on your practice?

The classic masters such as Michelangelo, Bernini, Rodin as well as Salvador Dali and my own father…

For more information visit: lorenzoquinn.com