Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo with We are the Revolution, 2000, by Maurizio Cattelan
, from her own collection

One of the world’s leading art philanthropists and patrons, Turin-based Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo is a leading light of Italian contemporary art, Here, she shares the inside track on six artists who have caught her eye this year

Benni Bosetto (B. 1987, Merate, Italy)

With a practice ranging from drawing and sculpture to installation and performance, Benni Bosetto is one of the Italian artists I have been following with the most interest and I have also collected her works. I believe her research around the theme of the body, explored from an original perspective, is attuned to the current global tendencies.

Saturday Total Eclipse, 2021, by Benni Bosetto

Jem Perucchini (B. 1995, Tekeze, Ethiopia)

The works of Jem Perucchini, an Italian artist born in Ethiopia whose first institutional solo exhibition I presented at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in 2025, harmoniously combine references to the Renaissance and the 20th century, with Byzantine influences derived from his Ethiopian origins.

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I am fascinated by the way his paintings evoke a spirituality that draws on classical and ancient sources, interpreting them from a contemporary perspective.

Anemone (The Letter), 2024, by Jem Perucchini

Giulia Cenci (B. 1988, Cortona, Italy)

Giulia Cenci is one of the young Italian artists who have received considerable international acclaim in recent years, having exhibited at institutions such as the Venice Biennale, the High Line in New York and Mudam Luxembourg.

In her work she innovates the language of sculpture, mixing recycled materials with dust, resins or aluminium and often working on impressive site-specific projects. I have supported her practice by co-producing her installation for the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022 and acquiring works for my collection.

Scalata, 2021-2022, by Giulia Cenci

Pol Taburet (B. 1997, Paris, France)

Among the stars of a new generation of painters, Pol Taburet is a French artist of Guadeloupean origin who has captured global attention with his paintings populated by timeless figures.

Read more: Mercedes-Maybach S-Class Review

I was so immediately impressed by his powerful imagery – a combination of influences from Caribbean traditions, classical Western painting and contemporary culture – that I organised an exhibition of his work with Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Madrid at the Pabellón de los Hexágonos, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Desire and Stones, 2025, by Pol Taburet

Xin Liu (B. 1991, Xinjiang, China)

A Chinese artist and engineer, Xin Liu presents a new exhibition at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo this spring, in collaboration with K11 Art Hong Kong. I am interested in her practice because of its connection with ecology and sustainability.

Experimenting with hi-tech materials, she produces incredible sculptures that transform over time by activating chemical process or biodegradation.

The Permanent and Insatiable, 2025, by Xin Liu, installation view, Moody Center for the Arts, Houston

Adji Dieye (B. 1991, Milan, Italy)

The Italian Senegalese artist Adji Dieye investigates the founding narratives of nation states and their current influence on personal and collective identities. For me, the strength of her work lies in its political, research-based background and in her combination of photography and sculpture.

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She prints images on fabric, creating installations that reflect on colonial and postcolonial history. The Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo will be holding a solo exhibition of Dieye’s work in September 2026, in collaboration with Associazione Genesi.

From Culture Lost and Learned by Heart, 2021, by Adji Dieye, installation view, C/O Berlin

Works can be viewed through fsrr.org

LUX Correspondent Annie Preston with the Mercedes-Maybach S-class

LUX’s Annie Preston swaps her chic little Mini for 5.3 meters of rolling serenity in the form of a Mercedes-Maybach S-class

I drive a Mini convertible. It is small, it is nippy, it is the sort of car you can park anywhere in London if you squint hard enough and believe in yourself. So, when I was invited to the media launch of the new Mercedes-Maybach S-Class, I felt a bit like a Shetland pony owner being handed the reins of a Grand National winner. What, exactly, was I meant to do with all this car?

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The answer, as it turns out, is very little, and that is precisely the point. The Maybach asks you to occupy it. Sliding into the rear cabin for the first time, doors closing themselves with a soft, ceremonial hush, I understood immediately that this was not a car built for me to do anything to it. It was built for it to do things for me.

The Mercedes-Maybach runs on a V-eight-cylinder engine, producing up to 450 kilowatts and 850 newton metres

Which brings me to the horsepower, because one must be responsible. Under the bonnet of the range-topping Mercedes-Maybach sits a newly evolved V-eight-cylinder engine producing up to 450 kilowatts and 850 newton metres plus 205 newton metres, numbers that mean, in practice, that this cocoon of calm, roughly the weight of a small elephant, can still put a smug little Porsche in its mirrors if the mood takes it.

There is even, in selected markets, a V12 still on offer for those who consider eight cylinders a personal insult. My Mini, for context, has four cylinders and an opinion about speed bumps. The Maybach simply does not acknowledge that speed bumps exist.

LUX correspondent Annie Preston with the Mercedes-Maybach

The launch took place along the rolling hills of the Côte d’Azur, which felt right for a car that seems to regard tarmac as more of a polite suggestion than a surface. There was a moment, somewhere between one sun-soaked bend and the next, where the road dipped, and the Maybach simply absorbed it, not so much driving as gliding, the faintest bounce underneath us like a boat easing over a gentle swell rather than a car meeting the road at all. I will say nothing else of the day itself, other than it involved a great deal of sitting very still, gliding along as if on water, and being thoroughly content about it.

Read more: A trip to D Maris Bay

Inside, the Maybach cocooning effect, Mercedes’ own term, and one I now use unprompted in conversation, is achieved through a small orchestra of materials. There is newly available leather-free upholstery, including a high-grade “Mirville” textile, paired with deep white piping and open quilted diamond stitching, which felt suspiciously like sitting inside a very expensive cloud.

The interior of the Mercedes-Maybach is described by Mercedes as “cocooning”

Open-pore oak trims the centre console; the rear seats come with their own climate zones, their own screens, their own small kingdom of buttons, which I did not touch for fear of accidentally ejecting myself. Silver-plated Robbe & Berking champagne flutes sit in bespoke holders behind the rear armrest, kept perfectly chilled by a dedicated refrigerated compartment, a detail so unnecessary, so gloriously over-engineered, that I found myself rather moved by it.

Ambient lighting shifts through 199 LEDs and 64 individually selectable colours, including a rose-gold hue that appears, rather charmingly, to have been invented specifically to flatter the Maybach badge on the steering wheel. The new MBUX Superscreen glows beneath the dash like something from a very tasteful spaceship, and the whole cabin hums with the sense that someone, somewhere, has thought about this rather harder than is strictly necessary, which, in the world of Maybach, is rather the entire point.

Annie Preston took the Mercedes-Maybach for the ultimate ride through the hills of Côte d’Azur

This is a throne room on wheels, endlessly considerate of the person sitting in the back, that our readers will always find themselves in, whether gliding to a gallery opening or being delivered, unhurried and unruffled, to dinner. I was simply testing it out on their behalf.

Read more: Linder through the highball glass

I may not be trading in my Mini anytime soon. But I will admit that reversing out of the car park afterwards, back to my small, cheerful convertible, felt for one brief moment rather like stepping out of a Luxury hotel suite and back into a rather charming tent.

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