THE ART & DESIGN ISSUE
In Billionaire's Art and Design issue we explore humanity's visual articulation of the world through creatives such as Ethiopian-born Julie Mehretu, named one of Time's most influential 100 people of 2020, our cover star.
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Year: 2024
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Quarter: Q3
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Issue: 37
What's in this issue?
When Julie Mehretu was just seven years old, her family fled political turmoil in Ethiopia to move to the US; themes of dislocation and placelessness frequently inform her work.
She may have captured the sentiment of a generation, given that Mehretu is one of only two women to have made the list of top 10 most expensive contemporary artworks sold at auction in 2023, as well as having set an auction record for an African-born artist.
In an increasingly digitised world can art and design give us the sense of place, the grounding, the recognisable home we crave? This is an idea we explore in this issue of Billionaire, themed around Art and Design, with the inimitable Mehretu as our cover star.
Elsewhere in this issue we hone in on some of the French maestros of the creative world, such as haute couture fashion designer Stephane Rolland and his crossover into opera; decorated architect and interior designer Charles Zana, who excels in elevating classicism; and super-chef Arnaud Donckele, who shuttles between Paris and Saint-Tropez looking after his two, triple-Michelin-starred restaurants.
We deep-dive into the good, bad and downright tacky at arguably the world’s most famous art gathering, the Venice Biennale, and look at the lauded newcomers at this year’s Pad Art & Design fair in London’s Berkeley Square. We travel to Greenland to the vividly beautiful Ilulissat Icefjord Centre and speak to the Danish architect behind it, Dorte Mandrup, and hear from the Lebanese-born architect Lina Ghotmeh, who steered this year’s Académie des Savoir-Faire, backed by the Hermès foundation.
And what better way to celebrate the incoming Autumn than with a trip to Kew Gardens, where British ceramicist Felicity Aylieff has a unique solo show of her gigantic vases, in among the majestic flora?