What We Do

Watching Luca Guadagnino’s films, you can easily sense his keen interest for design. It shines through the classic, book-lined interiors of the 17th-century villa that was much of the setting for Call Me by Your Name [2017], and the picturesque Villa Necchi Campiglio, the storied Milan home designed by Piero Portaluppi in the early 1930s that doubled as the backdrop for I Am Love [2009]. Although Guadagnino, 53, is known primarily for cinematic works such as these, he has also developed an architecture and design practice that started by happenstance after he revealed to a journalist that his secret wish was to be an interior designer. The admission led to a request for the auteur to design the interiors for a villa on Lido, the narrow island that’s also home to the Venice Film Festival. In 2022, Guadagnino made it official, debuting his studio to the public through “Accanto al Fuoco” (“By the Fire”), an exhibition at Milan Design Week.

‍

When Massimo De Carlo initially met Guadagnino in 2017, the art dealer was already infatuated with many of the director’s filmic characters such as a wealthy textile manufacturer’s wife, played by Tilda Swinton, in the throes of an extramarital affair with a chef. More recently he was drawn to an outcast American expat’s battle with addiction in Guadagnino’s latest film, Queer [2024], starring Daniel Craig and based on William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novel of the same name.

‍

On his end, Guadagnino was fully aware of De Carlo’s art-world history, too. The dealer, 66, founded his namesake gallery in 1987 in Milan and was among the first to discover the irreverence of Maurizio Cattelan, eventually granting him an exhibition in 1992. Seven years later, the artist duct-taped his dealer to a wall.

‍

De Carlo and Guadagnino’s meeting was sparked by curiosity with the former wanting to know more about the latter’s thoughts about art, and soon a reciprocal respect was cemented. The dealer-collector relationship evolved into a creative one when Guadagnino designed a virtual gallery for De Carlo during the pandemic. Though the pair still find ways to collaborate—more on that coming next year—more often they’re just happy to call one another close friends.

Massimo De Carlo: I remember the way we first met: You expressed interest in a sculpture by Jim Hodges [Other Ways, 2017]. Back then I wondered two things: number one, Who is this guy that is interested in a gigantic bronze sculpture, really gigantic, that few collectors would approach? And number two, Ah okay, he’s a film director. It would be nice to be in touch with him to understand what he thinks about art.

‍

Luca Guadagnino: Your fame preceded this moment of epiphany. I knew you very well from your extraordinary work in the art world, including the very famous moment in which you were hung on a wall by one of your artists. You know, Italy is a very slow place for all its powers and beauties, and there was not much movement regarding contemporary art. When I saw the sculpture that you are referring to in the gardens of your former gallery in Palazzo Belgioioso, I was in love. You know when you see someone, and you absolutely fall in love with the person? I have never stopped thinking about the sculpture since I saw it. And as you do when you finally manage to be in a relationship with the person you love, you start to take the love for granted, but it’s always beautiful to go back home and find it. I remember when I first approached you directly about it, you actually engaged with the conversation instead of thinking that I was completely mad.

‍

MDC: I went to your home, and we had a little conversation in which we realized that we had a common penchant for movies from the ’70s. You played a Werner Herzog movie for me, Nosferatu the Vampyre [1979], a movie that I saw many years ago. Herzog was quite an interesting director at the time, not only because of his visionary stories but also because he was able to connect alternative, avant-garde music to his movies. In Nosferatu, there is the soundtrack by [the German band] Popol Vuh... Because of you, Sufjan Stevens was nominated for an Oscar for the song that was in [Call Me by Your Name]. At the time I hadn’t seen it. When I did, I was very impressed.

‍

LG: In A Bigger Splash [2015], there is a very important scene where one person kills another person. Then in the night, the donor arrives. I put in this eerie music for a long extended sequence. That was the Popol Vuh soundtrack from Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God [1972].

‍

MDC: Yeah! I went to see your film Challengers [2024] recently, which I think was a fantastic movie, and even there, the Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor soundtrack impressed me a lot. I was a fan of Nine Inch Nails 20 years ago when it was just a post-industrial band.

‍

LG: I’m working with Trent and Atticus for the Queer soundtrack as well. The movie is about connection and disconnection, as is the book. These are very universal themes that travel through space and time. To see Queer in front of the audiences in Venice and Toronto has been a very intense experience.

‍

MDC: Before art, my main interest was music. I went to music festivals a lot when I was between 16 and 25, where you listen to 50 to 60 performances a week by different musical groups. I became a gallerist because I was not able to create an independent label for avant-garde music. That’s another thing we have in common: a taste for specific music.

‍

LG: Your work hinges very strongly on your very specific way of seeing art and scouting potential artists. It’s very erotic, I think, and that’s hand in hand with the idea I have for music. Music should be erotic.

‍

MDC: For me it’s a passion. I’m really envious about the fact that for you, passion is also a matter of work.

‍

LG: The same for you when we first worked on a project together...

MDC: At the time, we were already working together as a dealer and a collector. The idea came out of Covid. The gallery decided to have a virtual space—the VSpace—
in order to make our shows visible. We had 18 shows, some quite successful. In 2022, when Covid was over, people were coming back to the gallery. Everything was good. We wanted to keep the virtual gallery, but renovate it with real architecture made by a great architect, Giulio Ghirardi. More recently, I thought it was a good idea to ask you to work with the architect to redesign it, and you reacted with enthusiasm. I appreciated your sensitivity about details. You didn’t want to leave one little part of the wall white, you wanted to put virtual ceramics on it. You don’t know where you are when you see those ceramic pieces; you are kind of somewhere in a an unknown place.

‍

LG: The architect and I took the idea to do a virtual reality gallery and asked: What is the place? Where is the place? We had to proportion the rooms and the walls to host the art.

‍

MDC: Even more impressive were the little details of the architecture. You listened carefully to me, which was unexpected because you are a director. I mean a director is like a god in my opinion. You listened carefully and the final result is really impressive.

‍

LG: I am very proud of this work. I don’t think of film and architecture together; I think I can have many hats. The beauty of meeting, of having encounters like the one we had, the people I got to know around you: All that is invaluable to me. You need to go out and meet different people in order to grow. I met the wonderful Thomas Grünfeld through you. He is political in a way that is witty and playful and really dark. I love it.

‍

We have so many things in common. Honestly, we don’t see each other very much, but every time we see each other there is an indulgence when we share these moments. You have a vast collection of ceramics, and I also collect ceramics and porcelains. Recently, we were together at my countryside home for a performance I coordinated with the choreographers Paul Lightfoot and Sol León, followed by dinner.

‍

MDC: That’s really the Italian style of being together: eating together or talking about food together.

“We are privileged. We do what we love. We deal with form, and we deal with something that is very beautiful and invaluable.”
— Luca Guadagnino

LG: That’s another thing that unites us: cooking and eating.

‍

MDC: I can find good food even in places that are not considered the most brilliant places for food because I love almost everything. What I like most is the great Italian Sunday lunch, which is very popular right now. Lasagna, prosciutto with melon, those kinds of things. It is nostalgic for me, too, which makes the food even better.

‍

LG: It’s the art of gathering, of spending time lounging at the table for a long time and, in doing that, having a deep connection with the tradition of your territory. The Sunday lunch from Lombardy to Veneto and Piedmont, which are the three big Northern Italian regions, would be very different but the consistency is in the gathering, sharing, and tradition. Both of us cannot be put into the category of traditionalists, but there is something exquisite about going back to your roots while simultaneously being launched into the future.

‍

MDC: To be honest, I like what I’m doing so much that I need very little time to recharge. Watching a couple of movies for me is a good trip.

‍

LG: Likewise, I don’t care about going away.

‍

MDC: If I stay away for more than three days, I get nervous. The next trip is to Hong Kong for me. I’m part of the organization of Art Basel Hong Kong, and I’m going there in one week to set everything up and discuss the future of the fair.

‍

LG: I will never go to any art fairs.

‍

MDC: That’s interesting, I didn’t know this!

LG: I will never go there because I want everything. I must say that now as a collector, I need to really have clean eyes, and I don’t want to see too much at the same time or see too many people at the same time. So the orgy of an art fair? I don’t care. I ask myself, Would I go to an art fair if I was a billionaire so that I could buy whatever I want that day? And my answer would be no, not even in that case. For me, editing is the most important thing, and it takes time, isolation.

‍

MDC: It’s quite a wise attitude.

‍

LG: We are privileged. We do what we love. We meet the people we love. We deal with form, and we deal with something that is very beautiful and invaluable.

‍

MDC: I don’t want to forget about what I consider the most important part of my life, which is my job. I was so lucky that I was able to invent myself as an art dealer, as a gallerist, and of course I didn’t start in art at all, and this gave me the privilege to love what I do. The suggestion that my grandfather gave me once when I was 19 was that, “working 12 hours a day is always better than the people that work only seven.” I work for 14 hours a day, but I’m happy. I’d say that being “busy” is an understatement! The gallery is gearing up for our 100th show in Paris, our end-of-year shows across locations, and we will kick off 2025 with an ambitious program: Alvaro Barrington in Milan, Ruby Neri in London, Jessie Homer French in Hong Kong... not to mention upcoming fairs and collaborations with institutions worldwide, among which are Fondation Le Corbusier. I think that the new generation should appreciate the fact that working hard is the magic password to success.

‍

LG: You need to have a sense of sacrifice, a sense of discipline and rigor, a lot of entrepreneurial sense.

‍

MDC: I agree. Bravery and hard work.

‍

LG: I think it is difficult, but who am I to say no to somebody who wants to break into the industry? I hire young people to work with me all the time. In my interior design studio, I work with many young architects that eventually became important photographers, production designers. You have to be brave.