Luca Guadagnino has added creative director to his list of jobs.
As a filmmaker, to his credit “Challengers,” the Oscar-nominated film “Call Me by Your Name” and the upcoming “Queer,” William S. An adaptation of Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical novel Starring Daniel Craigwhich was recently premiered here Venice Film Festival. He is also the founder of Studio Luca Guadagnino, an award-winning interiors firm in Milan that has designed many. housesboutique and, most recently, the Palazzo Talia Hotel in Rome.
Now, Mr. Guadagnino marshals the staging and curation of Homo Faber, a month-long, biennial art exhibition that opened Sunday at the Giorgio Sini Foundation, a cultural center on Venice’s San Giorgio Maggiore island. Homo Faber, which means “man the maker” in Latin, is put on by the Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship, a Geneva-based non-profit founded by Italian writer Franco Coloni and luxury billionaire Johann Rupert, chairman of Richemont. Owns the brands Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Alaïa. Mr. Guadagnino partnered with Niccolò Rosmarini, his design studio project manager, to make this third edition “an integrated experience — like a narrative,” he said.
To achieve this, Mr. Guadagnino and Mr. Rosmarini explored the island’s 16th-century Palladio-designed monasteries and various buildings that transport visitors through 10 multisensory set pieces, each dedicated to an aspect of the human experience, such as childhood, courtship. and dreams. They designed everything (“the lighting system, the uniforms, the tote bags, the table, the cable cover on the floor,” Mr. Guadagnino said) then filled the room with 800 items by 400 craftsmen from 70 countries.
Mr. Guadagnino sat in the monastery’s charred baroque library to talk about the importance of craftsmanship in modern life and how he handles several projects at once. This interview has been condensed and edited.
You direct and produce movies, you design interiors and now you organize exhibitions. How can you solve all this?
Luca Gudagnino: I am Homo Faber. I like to do things, I am a multitasker. I have horizontal time and I have vertical time. While we’re doing this interview, I’m also working out in my head what I need to do, or want to do. However, I hope you feel that I am completely with you.
And I’ve always had wonderful partners. Like Nicolo. and Irish architect Nigel Peake, who created the beautiful Homo Faber logo. And the great Italian landscape designer Antonio Perazzi, with whom I work on various projects, and who brought love to these gardens. When you share ideas and responsibilities, and struggle, confront and dialogue, you get better ideas. For me, communication with people is always tireless. I can always talk to people.
It’s as if you’re telling us that design and craftsmanship are everywhere we turn: in our childhood bedrooms, on our tabletops, in our gardens.
The 20th century was a century of design and mass production, which transformed the idea of a unique piece into a piece that everyone could find. This is a beautiful form of democracy, but there is a danger of indescribability. For me, the idea of trying to create something that speaks to many is very unique. That’s something I’m really trying to do.
Tell us about the Dream Room — a dark enclosure in a former swimming pool, where you have an army of identically dressed mannequins. Azzedine Alaa A tattered, hooded robe, hovering over a reflecting pool and framed by a display of hundreds of ghostly masks.
I’m an old-fashioned Freudian, so I think dreams are how the unconscious speaks and that sexuality is always under the surface. I also like the idea of the dream being fluid, and then being opaque, so the water is black, and yet, on the surface, you have this eternal feminine design, displayed in the same form in 30 different shades, and the mask, which is about concealment. , but thereby also empowers your identity. Every dream is erotic, absolutely.
Do you have a favorite part of the show?
In the Courtship Room, there is a silver flower sculpture by Korean craftsman Hyejeong Ko that is made from 3,000 small interlocking pieces. It’s amazing.
Are you happy with how the show turned out?
This question is amazing because it’s the last two lines of my new movie “After the Hunt” with Julia Roberts. Ayo Adebiri asks, “Are you happy?” And Julia replies, “Yes, I am.”
I am too.
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