Shio Kusaka at David Zwirner, New York

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

Bettina Korek, CEO of the Serpentine Galleries in London

This month I’m excited to see my friend Shio Kusaka’s exhibition at David Zwirner in New York. Her ceramics are influenced by her daily life: vessels with designs that highlight their imperfections as if gleaned from lived wisdom, or dinosaur and animal pieces that her kids love. There is a complicated formal world locked away in each of her seemingly playful creations, with sophisticated difference and repetition techniques as well as nuanced tactility that can only existed in a medium such as this.

Dominique Gonzalez Foerster, Opera QM.15

I’m also looking forward to OPERA (QM.15), an artwork by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster presented at Bourse de Commerce in Paris inspired by the legendary Maria Callas from 6th April. The artist describes the ‘apparitions’ as “an attempt to communicate with certain spirits”—very intriguing proposition. Similarly, Gonzalez-Foerster’s Serpentine takeover this spring considers the questions: what would happen if aliens fell in love with us. She so masterfully creates multifaceted worlds that oscillate between finite and infinite, the empirical and the dramaturgical.

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Lastly, I always recommend visiting a Mayfair hidden gem: the Louis Vuitton flagship on New Bond Street which includes fascinating immersive works by eminent artists such as James Turrell, Alex Katz, Sarah Crowner and furniture by the Campana Brothers. I’ve always admired LV’s innovation in producing collaborations with artists and dedication to bringing art to the public in a way that exceeds expectations for a luxury brand.

Helaine Blumenfeld OBE, sculptor

Given the current state of uncertainty in the world, I recommend two powerful and moving exhibitions (in addition to my own solo show Intimacy and Isolation at the Hignell Gallery, Mayfair, London) to help us remember the sense of healing that Art can provide.

Helaine Bleumnfeld’s Intimacy and Isolation at the Hignell Gallery, Mayfair, London

Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland offers a deep look at Georgia O’Keeffe’s work including rarely seen paintings from public and private collections from 23 January until 22 May. The show explores O’Keeffe’s unique way of looking at her surroundings and translating them into new and hitherto unseen images of reality. Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings of flowers have deeply affected and profoundly influenced me from my childhood. Her work suggests transcendence into a realm that lies beyond substance; it is poetic and elusive; it is often joyful. Ultimately, her work is mysterious and visionary. The abstract images reflect O’Keeffe’s desire to capture the ‘essence’ and to reveal a multitude of figurative references that she disguises with transparent layers. She takes serious risks with colour and challenges visual harmony in order to stimulate the viewer to look beyond the parameters, to question what they see. I often find myself revisiting her images in my mind, both on dark days when I feel the need for intense light and renewal and, in celebratory moments when I want to share my optimism and sense of possibility.

Georgia O’Keeffe, Oriental Poppies, 1927

Also not to be missed is By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500–1800 at the Detroit Institute of Arts from 6 February until 29 May which highlights the largely unexplored role of women artists in Italy from the Renaissance until the Enlightenment. Although many will know the powerful and difficult story of Artemisia Gentileschi and her daring and dynamic work, this show goes further, highlighting the works of a diverse group of Italian women artists, all of whom challenged the conventions and expectations of a male-dominated art world. The variety in their work reveals to the viewer not only their technical skills but their vision, ingenuity and courage as artists.

Phil America, artist and designer

When you travel the world a lot or frequent art fairs, you start to see a lot of the same artists and trends over and over again. It takes something special, something unique to make me feel like I have to go see a particular show if I don’t know the artist personally at this point.

One gallery I am never disappointed by is François Ghebaly gallery in Los Angeles. The current shows, Victoria Gitman‘s Everything Is Surface: Twenty Years of Painting and Em Kettner‘s The Understudies are not to be missed.

Em Kettner, Two Guides, 2022

I had a moment to talk about the show itself as well as the artists with the gallery’s director Belen Piñeiro and she told me, “the shows by Victoria Gitman and Em Kettner deal with intimacy but from very different perspectives. Where Victoria’s work is about surface and challenging our idea of representation, Em’s works on tile develop storytelling and character construction. On both shows however, the small scale of the formats brings the viewer to get up close to the works, observe their minute detail which creates a form of introspection. They require physical presence to fully understand them.”

Read more: Philanthropy: Anita Choudhrie on supporting women in parasports and art

Victoria Gitman, On Display, 2006. Photograph by Paul Salveson

If you find yourself in Los Angeles before the shows close on May 7th, your physical presence is required at Francois Ghebaly’s gallery.

Emilia Yin, founder, Make Room Gallery, LA

I will have to say my must-visit exhibition is our booth at Art Brussels, where we present the work of Jacopo Pagin and Guimi You in conversation. The practices of Pagin and You are concerned with the crosscultural history of painting as a medium, as well as the investigation of modern existence and mysticism through such historical lenses.

Guimi You painting. Photo by Josh Schaedel

Guimi You’s practice is informed by her training in both San-su hwa (traditional Korean painting) and Western oil painting. Her works combine the influence of feminists surrealists like Leonora Carrington with the vast plein air landscapes of Korean silk painters like Jeong Seon. Jacopo Pagin’s limpid canvases are rife with nods to Venetian colorito and Mannerist figuration, inspirations gleaned from his training at the Accademia in Venice. His compositions are shot through with a delicate surrealism evocative of Leonor Fini’s dream-like sketched figures or Cocteau’s sensuous line drawings. While You’s female figures comment upon the Sublime vastness of landscapes– often dwarfed by their colorful expanses– Pagin’s characters become part of the landscape, their heads melded into the surf and the rock faces, bringing to mind pagan goddesses of nature. As Guimi’s own technique finds itself at an intersection of Easten and Western technique, so too does Pagin’s leitmotifs evoke a cross cultural dimension: his works often contain within them decorated fans or Chinese patterns, which, combined with his deeply learned techniques, simultaneously evoke and subvert the craze of Orientalism in 18th-century European art.

Jacopo Pagin, ‘We Kiss’

Though deeply indebted to established styles and practices, You and Pagin both confront their subjects from a wholly contemporary perspective. You’s intense color palettes are drawn from the digital, her initial designs taking shape on iPad software. Her practice is intensely intuitive and personal, drawn from real life, which makes her dreamlike interventions– a maw of pitch blackness enveloping a canvas; a colorless figure pasted into a lush landscape like a glitch on the canvas; a curl of steam morphing into a toy snake– all the more surreal; Pagin’s interventions of abstraction into his paintings is accompanied by his use of a mise-en-scéne, composed of sonic art and installation. These installations are approached in a dense, philosophical manner, by which the paintings function as a “time machine” through which the artist can– in his own words– “reuse and reinterpret the gestures and techniques of the past to continually re-identify myself through diverse means.”

They both previously had sold out exhibitions at Make Room, and this is both of their first time participating at Art Brussels.

The fair will be open from April 28- May 2.

LUX Editorial Team

This month we’re looking forward to seeing Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear at the V&A in London. Fashioning Masculinities is an exhibition which celebrates the diversity of men’s fashion throughout history. Designs from contemporary fashion designers such as Harris Reed and Raf Simons are featured alongside historical artefacts which include sculptures, painting and photographs.

Alessandro Michele for Gucci look worn by Harry Styles

The exhibition displays the wide range of ideas that surround masculinities, particularly beyond the binary, and how this idea has evolved and changed throughout history from the Renaissance to the modern day.

Our fleet at the foot of the Cervino (Matterhorn) in Cervina, Italy

You might associate Lamborghinis with Dubai, Cannes, Los Angeles and London, shooting down city streets or parked outside expensive restaurants and hotels. Candice Tucker visits Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy, the home of the brand, and drives, and is driven in, the company’s latest models to a village high in the Alps

Like many, I find I can be easily distracted by a Lamborghini’s sleek shape, often ostentatious colours (most famously green, yellow and orange) and of course, the sound the engine makes when someone speeds past you.

Visiting the factory, watching the cars being made, altered my perception of the brand.

Making our way up into the Alps in convoy

Take a quick tour around the factory, in central Italy, and you can begin to see why these cars are some of the most expensive in the world. There are rows of stations, and clocks on each row that don’t say the time, but the amount of minutes each worker has left to work on their station. 33 minutes. That’s how long each worker in the main Urus factory has to do their part in the making of each Lamborghini. From the door fitters to the needle workers on the leather seats, everyone is under a timer to move their part onto the next station. The robots are only used to assist rather than replace the human hand. Your green status symbol is indeed hand made.

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The Lamborghini factory has been CO2 neutral since 2015

The future is electric cars, and it’s difficult to imagine what this means for Lamborghini’s distinct sounding engines, but this hasn’t stopped them pursuing a hybrid transition with gusto. They expect by 2023 to create their first hybrid series production car and by the second half of the decade, Lamborghini has committed to creating a fully electric model.

The Lamborghini V12 is the brand’s flagship engine

After the factory came the journey, in various Lamborghinis. I started mine in the ‘beast’, also known as the ‘Urus’. Lamborghini’s SUV (large 4×4) is huge and extremely powerful. Driving it, you feel as if you are in the emperor of SUVs. Very big, very fast, and you can alter driving modes like in a supercar. “Corsa” mode felt wicked – Corsa means race in Italian.

Lamborghini makes a full-on supercar, the Aventador; a more practical two-seater sports car, the Huracán; and a powerful SUV, the Urus. All are available in a variety of specifications – and colours

If you want to take a step further into raciness mode, the Huracán STO or the SVJ Aventador might interest you. The Aventador is futuristic and showy from the outside. Inside, the SVJ is stripped of all its finer comforts, and you sit in unforgiving carbon fibre seats. It’s all about speed, which is no surprise given it is renowned V12 engine, which was deafening particularly when you drive through tunnels, the sound drilling through your ears. The STO is slightly lighter to drive and the exterior of the car is as close as you’ll get to looking like a race car on the road. Both cars offer the same extreme performance, but the STO allows you to remain cocooned in luxury by comparison.

The Urus was the most sold Lamborghini model in 2021, with 5,021 deliveries

Having travelled across the motorway, through the ancient part of the village of Bard in the Aosta valley (where cars are normally prohibited) and up the mountains to Cervinia, Lamborghini demonstrate that their cars are fit for purpose on any terrain. Whilst I wouldn’t suggest driving on icy roads, we put the STO and the Huracán EVO to the test, driving on an ice ring. The STO being a rear wheel drive, made this slightly more difficult to manoeuvre, but the EVO retained its speed and control.

Huracán EVO spinning on the ice track

The ultimate experience for me was the Huracán EVO Spyder. This is a convertible 640 horsepower supercar. Scaling the Italian Alps with the roof down, enjoying the fresh mountain air casting over your face was fun. With no space for a suitcase or even a hand luggage, the EVO wouldn’t be the car for your family ski holiday but it’s perfect for a day trip. The lightness of the car made it very agile up the mountain.

Read more: A tasting of Dalla Valle wines with the owners

Driving through the streets of the village of Bard, in the Aosta valley, where cars are usually prohibited. You can see why

There were no other Lamborghinis of any colour in Cervinia. It’s not that kind of place. It’s all about cows, mountain air, and the shadow of the Matterhorn. But what an adventure getting there in four of the most exciting and eye-catching cars in the world.

Find out more: lamborghini.com

Heather Clancy and Sanda Ojiambo, CEO and Executive Director, United Nations Global Compact © GreenBiz Group/Louis Bryant III

Is there a one size fits all when it comes to corporate climate action? No matter how big a business is, says Heather Clancy, one thing is for certain: inaction is no longer an option. Clancy is Vice President and Editorial Director of GreenBiz, the media company working to accelerate the just transition to a clean economy. She tells LUX why companies need to work harder to embed environmental justice into their corporate sustainability strategy, and explains how climate fintech may just be key to the green transition

Heather Clancy ©GreenBiz Group/Louis Bryant III

LUX: Is there a one size fits all when it comes to corporate climate action?
Heather Clancy: The way a company prioritises is very focused on their individual business. The supply chain of one company could be totally different to that of another. US tech companies, for example, have done a lot on renewable energy, but should be doing more on how they treat and engage with their employees on various issues. Each company must look at what they touch and then make the decisions about which levers to push and pull most directly. The one thing they must do, however, is act. They can’t sit around anymore, no matter how big or small they are.

LUX: How should companies be balancing the ‘E’ and ‘S’ of ESG?
Heather Clancy: Corporations are not spending enough time thinking about how environmental justice is embedded into their corporate sustainability strategies. The pandemic has prompted a lot of soul-searching when it comes to where companies are doing business, but there is still a huge disconnect between the company’s corporate perceptions of what environmental justice means and how they act as a business. There is so much attention being put into making sure workforces reflect the diversity of the community –which is great – but companies need to get a lot more thoughtful about how they engage with the individuals and communities with whom they engage.

For example, one of the biggest blockers to the clean energy transition right now is the supply of materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel. The necessity of these materials – which are used for wind turbines, electric vehicles, and batteries – has prompted a large increase in mining activities around the world, but there has not been enough attention paid to where that land is. A lot of it sits on indigenous territories, and these communities are not being consulted or involved in the plans, or economically compensated if that’s what is required.

Now that we have this supply chain rethink happening, it would be incumbent upon corporations to look closely at where they’re siting their new manufacturing city facilities if they’re going to move them. This means actually including communities in those plans –helping them understand what the plan is and asking them what makes sense.

Accountability of corporations is crucial for the green transition. Image courtesy of Andreas Gucklhorn

LUX: Are there enough measurable standards for corporations to be measured by?
Heather Clancy: If you ask them, there are too many standards! What is missing is a push for accountability, especially in the United States. The markets are motivated by these earnings reports that we get on a quarterly basis, but there is no equivalent for ESG measures. I do believe that this will be changing, though. Probably the most important prompter for this has been the Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), whose recommendations made a tipping point happen as far as how companies talk about what they’re doing and how they are being held accountable for that. But now things are in place, we need to get some agreement and coalescence around certain of these things.

LUX: What role can early-stage climate tech play in decarbonisation?
Heather Clancy: Small, innovative companies have a real opportunity to innovate and become the new suppliers for larger companies – for example by producing alternative materials like mushroom-based packaging to replace plastic or Styrofoam. It is not coincidental that there are so many corporate venture funds now focused on climate technologies, because these corporations are going to benefit from that innovation when the company goes public down the line.

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A great example is the Amazon-Rivian relationship. Rivian was a vaguely unknown electric van maker, which got a hundred-thousand-unit order from Amazon and has now gone on to become public. There is a lot of shakiness in the market right now with some of these suppliers, but that’s fundamental to business. It’s mainly a great innovation opportunity.

LUX: Do you think it’s correct to talk about de-carbonisation and opportunities in climate tech as being ‘opportunities’, or are they still challenges?
Heather Clancy: Look at Allbirds. They had some shakiness with their ESG IPO, but their entire company was created with the idea of using materials in a different way. One of the biggest problems with athletic shoes is the soles, so they worked to create a new type of sole with a new material which has a lower carbon footprint than other sneaker soles. Instead of choosing to make that sole their own proprietary invention, they opened the technology up to other organisations and helped other companies to start using it. As other companies start to use this technology, the costs will come down and it will be cheaper for them to use it as well. That is a company whose entire business model is framed around this.

Heather Clancy and Hana Kajimura, Head of Sustainability, Allbirds © GreenBiz Group/Louis Bryant III

LUX: What else is exciting you in the climate tech sector at the moment?
Heather Clancy: I am particularly interested in nature-based carbon capture and sequestration technologies. There is an organisation called Project Vesta that’s using nature-based approaches in this way. There’s a big debate about whether we should be investing in those things, because it takes money away from these newer areas, but I think we need to remove the carbon that’s there.

LUX: What role can fintech play in the green transition?
Heather Clancy: The digitisation of sustainability is really important, because it’s becoming part of the financial infrastructure of the companies themselves. Software innovations help companies better understand their climate risks, have a truer accounting of the carbon footprint of their supply chain operations, and to understand whether their carbon offset has the value they think it has. These tools also help people make investments in the other climate technologies.

LUX: What is the biggest barrier to scaling climate tech?
Heather Clancy: Politics. Climate is such a partisan issue in many areas of the world. It has become so easy for one side to weaponise the community and say, ‘look at these renewable energy advocates, they’re making your energy costs go up’. That’s been very damaging in terms of the whole concept.

Beyond that, though, is policy. If there’s one thing that we really are lacking from corporations, it is the voice and end policy support. There are so many policies in place that need to be changed, but there is not enough happening at the federal, state or local levels to help put the policies in place that will make this transition happen more quickly.

Heather Clancy explains the battle for companies desiring to create and bring in new greener technologies but not wanted to create waste by dumping the old materials. Image courtesy of Nick Fewings

LUX: Should we prioritise de-carbonising existing infrastructure or starting from scratch with new green technologies?
Heather Clancy: I’ve been thinking a lot about net zero buildings and how difficult it is to go in and retrofit a building to become a better performing building. There are incentives that exist which make it much easier to knock the thing down and to build a new one. That’s just a huge waste: why aren’t we reusing those materials? But the policies and the laws make it harder to do it any other way.

The other problem with giving credit for renewal projects is that it caters to the people that have money already. If you are a small organisation and don’t have the revenue, you can’t actually take advantage of some of these incentives currently because you can’t afford to invest in them. This is true of the way some of the clean energy incentives are written in the United States. That doesn’t make economic sense.

Read more: Product designer Tord Boontje on sustainable materials

LUX: Are corporations, consumers, or legislation responsible for leading the green transition?
Heather Clancy: Extended producer responsibilities is the buzzword here. It’s important that corporations be more responsible, and they have to be using their voices as well.

LUX: What should the wealthy be doing?
Heather Clancy: They should model better behaviour, and they also need to put their money where it counts. What Bill Gates with his Breakthrough Energy coalition is extraordinary, and seems to me to be an important model. Likewise, Mackenzie Scott and Laurene Powell Jobs have put money in some extraordinarily unusual places by investing in historically black colleges and communities that don’t usually get the money. They’re doing it quietly, and they’re putting their money to work.

It’s also time for the wealthy to help small businesses get on the bandwagon in terms of ESG – to help them with energy efficiency, with their waste and manufacturing processes. Buying from these companies will enable them to make the shift to greener practices.

Find out more: greenbiz.com

Anita Choudhrie, Founder of Path to Success and Stellar International Art Foundation

Anita Choudhrie is at the forefront of building opportunities for women in both the worlds of art and sports. Here, the founder of Path to Success and Stellar International Art Foundation speaks to Samantha Welsh about where her passion for philanthropy in these particular fields came from.

LUX: What drew you to advocate for the rights and needs of the disabled?
Anita Choudhrie: My mother had a terminal eye problem, so much so, that by the time she was fifty she was completely blind. However, growing up I always admired how she continued to live her life with such endeavour, confidence and purpose. She was rarely dependent on other people and managed to live each day to the full despite this challenge.

Having witnessed her strength and determination, I wanted to empower other individuals, facing unique challenges, with the same resolve. Whilst studying at Delhi University, I became increasingly aware of the hardships that those outside of our vision and environment face, and I decided that I wanted to make a difference. As a result, I became deeply passionate about my own charitable work, and this led me to the path I am on today.

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LUX: You have been leading change in disability services for over 25 years. How did this all start?
Anita Choudhrie: Inspired by my grandfather’s philanthropic work and my own passion for charitable endeavours, in 1985 I became involved with a school for disabled children in India. From being on the board, to championing fundraising efforts and working with the children in the school, this experience was my first real role in championing disability services.

I decided I wanted to take the work we were doing with the children to the next level – both to enhance the support they were receiving and to boost fundraising efforts. As a result, I organised for sixteen children with multiple disabilities to travel to the UK to raise awareness. It took almost eight months to arrange everything, including a performance at the House of Commons, and the trip was a great success. All the funds raised went to the school and enabled them to build an entirely new block, purchase a specially adapted school bus and also to acquire land for a new school altogether.

LUX: What pivoted your attention towards women’s disabled sport?
Anita Choudhrie: Female athletes are just as able to achieve great sporting accolades as their male counterparts, however, women’s sport typically receives far less funding – and this disparity is even more pronounced when it comes to para sports.

Therefore, I wanted to focus my charitable efforts on supporting female para-athletes in sports which receive little to no government funding, to work towards levelling the playing field and creating equal opportunities in society.

Anita started Path to Success to provide more opportunities for women para-athletes

LUX: What is Path to Success and is there a connection between how you are personally invested in giving and the support offered by PTS?
Anita Choudhrie: Founded in 2005, Path to Success is the UK’s leading disability charity that focuses on turning inability into ability for disabled women in sport.

Currently we support 9 female Paralympic athletes as part of our appeal of ‘Empowering Female Athletes in Disability Sport’. These athletes compete across four disciplines; wheelchair basketball, wheelchair tennis, para powerlifting and para badminton. We have also supported the London Titans Wheelchair Basketball Club since 2015 – one of the largest basketball clubs in the UK who have produced over 50 Paralympians.

Our mission is to address the barriers para-athletes face, secure the legacy of disability sport in the UK and inspire a new generation of British female Paralympic stars.

LUX: How successful was Tokyo 2020 for the Paralympians?
Anita Choudhrie: Women’s sport is slowly gaining more recognition, but women’s disability sport still doesn’t attract anywhere near the attention it both needs and deserves. The Paralympics is always a brilliant platform to raise awareness of these individuals and the tremendous capabilities of para-athletes on a whole.

It was therefore brilliant to see the athletes we support achieve the great successes they truly deserve and have worked so hard for in Tokyo.

In total, five of our athletes took part in the Tokyo Paralympics, brining home two silver and three bronze medals.

Read more: 6 Questions: Angela McCarthy, The Earth Foundation

LUX: What can we look forward to in women’s parasport this year?
Anita Choudhrie: The key event to look forward to this year is the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham at the end of July.

Due to the way the sporting calendar is set out, there is usually a two-year gap between the Paralympic and Commonwealth Games. However, as a result of the delays to the Tokyo Games, this marks the first occasion that they will follow directly on from each other. The hope therefore is that much of the momentum and excitement will carry over, making for a spectacular event. To add to this, this year’s event is set to mark the biggest participation from para-athletes ever, which can only be good for the development of women’s parasport.

In addition, this year British Wheelchair Basketball has also launched the first-ever women’s premier league. The inaugural season which will run until the end of May 2022 is the first of its kind for women’s wheelchair basketball in the world and the very first professional para-sport league in the UK. The introduction of this league marks a monumental step forward for women’s parasport and the hope is that it will not only help to make the UK a hub for the world’s best wheelchair basketball players, but that other parasports will soon follow suit creating new opportunities for aspiring female para-athletes.

Anita Choudhrie and her husband started their collection when they were married and now have over 800 significant 800 artworks © Charles Shearn

LUX: Is there a philosophy shared with PTS behind why you founded STELLAR?
Anita Choudhrie: My underlying philosophy has always been that we are stronger together. For example, every year the Stellar International Art Foundation celebrates International Women’s Day by supporting a female artist who has faced socio, economic or physical challenges.

A desire to empower women, and under-represent diaspora in society, is very much at the heart of what I do through all my philanthropic endeavours. Art and sport are two great passions of mine, yet women are still grossly underrepresented in both. What unites my work in both sectors is a desire to change this and ensure women have the exposure, support and funding that they deserve – to showcase their talent and build their profile.

LUX: Your personal passion is the visual arts and you have collected more than significant 800 artworks since the 1970s.  Are there underlying principles that guide you and what is your approach?
Anita Choudhrie: My husband and I have always shared a passion for art, and we have been collecting pieces since we got married. Founded in 2008, Stellar International Art Foundation began when we decided to comprehensively organise our collection.

Stellar International Art Foundation Artist Vasundhara Sellamuthu show, 2021

What started as a family endeavour to collect pieces of art for the pure love of it, has grown into something much more. Now we view our collection as a way to advocate for artists who we believe have an amazing appreciation for culture and can enrich society through their work. To this end, one of our underlying principles is to acquire entire collections, rather than just individual works of art, to help secure the artists legacy.

Moreover, by collecting European, Russian, American and Indian art and distinguishing our selection less on regional concerns and more on artistic talent, we have been able to champion overlooked artists and give them a well-deserved voice.

LUX: What artists are personal signifiers and are part of your family legacy?
Anita Choudhrie: I’d say probably our collection of MF Husain’s works. We have one of the largest artworks outside the estate, making it the most significant home for the artist’s works. With over 250 works spanning from the early 1950s through to his final years, the collection supersedes all the world’s museum, gallery and private collections. A great patron of the artist, we were chosen as the guardians of not only a large volume of work in general, but especially his most famous and, arguably, most important series: Maria. With the same ethos in mind, the Foundation has sought to keep his most significant series intact for future generations.

LUX: How have you shown the collection to date and is there a vision for it?
Anita Choudhrie: Stellar International Art Foundation has staged a number of exhibitions, has produced a seminal publication on a master artist within the Collection and has even been revered by some of the worlds’ most respected curators and critics.

We also hold an annual speaking event in celebration of International Women’s Day, to help champion overlooked artists and give them a well-deserved voice. Ultimately, the real meaning of our foundation lies not in its material possessions, but in the opportunities it provides for artists.

Anita Choudhrie and Vasundhara Sellamuthu

This year we are delighted to be supporting emerging London-based South Asian artist Vasundhara Sellamuthu. Through an exciting range of media, Vasundhara’s work explores a range of binaries such as East/West, architecture/vernacular and foreign/home, playfully engaging with her urban environment and its unnoticed makers. I have long believed in the value of artistic practice as an active force for challenge and change, and I hope that by showcasing Vasundhara’s work, preconceived binaries will be challenged and together we will be able to drive change.

The dream one day is to have a permanent museum to showcase the entire collection. Hopefully this is an aspiration that will become a reality in the not-too-distant future.

LUX: What advice would you offer a young person embarking upon their philanthropy journey?
Anita Choudhrie: I would implore anyone embarking upon their philanthropic journey to first really consider what they are truly passionate about. Throughout my career I have found it is those individuals who have a unique, personal perspective that are able to drive the greatest change.

Education, disability and supporting women are the consistent threads that have run through my philanthropic work. I find that opportunities and causes present themselves to you the deeper you become involved in philanthropy.

Find out more: 

pathtosuccess.org.uk

sia.foundation

This finalist team from Kibera came up with a waste recycling system in the largest urban slum in Africa

The Earth Prize is one of the many initiatives run by The Earth Foundation. It is a competition open to all institutions from leading schools in London to the poorest slums in Africa. The Prize  encourages schools, students, researchers and young entrepreneurs to educate themselves and be mentored in order to find innovative solutions to  solve the planet’s environmental challenges. With the winner of The Earth Prize being announced on Friday 25th March 2022, Candice Tucker speaks to Angela McCarthy, CEO of The Earth Foundation, about the importance and impact of this Prize.

Angela McCarthy

1. Why do you think teenagers might have the solutions to some of our greatest environmental issues?

They have the ability to still think out of the box. They are in touch with their creative minds and they care deeply about the planet. This emotional intelligence is key in finding solutions. The older we get, the more we are blinded by outside belief patterns blocking our imaginations and causing us to lose touch with nature and ourselves.

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2. How important is education versus action in schools with regards to the fight against climate change?

With education, action comes naturally. Once you have opened the eyes and ears of teenagers to what is happening, how and why, they can then take steps to make a change. Once they care about their planet’s crises through education, they will want to make different choices. Those choices create a ripple effect. As we know, there are many factors that contribute to climate change. If they can start to live differently or come up with new solutions, they will help the fight against climate change.

The adjudicating panel for the Earth Prize consists of leaders in sustainability, science and entrepreneurship

3. The Earth Prize is open to leading private schools in the wealthiest countries to those with the most basic education in refugee camps and slums. How do you ensure a level playing field?

Once they have registered online for free, everyone receives the same support to participate in The Earth Prize competition. This includes online video learning content and access to our 30 university mentors whom the students can ask for help at any point. I and The Earth Foundation team are available for any further advice or to answer questions that any teacher, supervisor or student may have at any time. We found that everyone was able to get access to the internet, and that is what made it all work! Our students in Lebanon had the internet go down and they would have to wait until it was rebooted, and the same happened in South Africa, but they all managed. The amazing teachers made it their mission to support their students while they came up with their own solutions. Finally, equality was guaranteed because each submission carried only a number, thus eliminating any risk of bias in the judging.

4. What was the original intention of The Earth Prize?

To inspire, educate, mentor, and empower students, schools, researchers, and young entrepreneurs with innovative ideas to tackle environmental challenges. Through this process we strive to build our very own ecosystem. Peter McGarry, the founder, and I believe in the voices of the youth being heard and bringing their solutions to life, and how everyone can be part of the solution to solving today’s most pressing sustainability issues.

The Earth Foundation was founded in 2020, in Geneva, Switzerland by Pete McGarry to encourage young people to find solutions to the Earth’s environmental challenges.

5. Apart from The Earth Prize, can you tell us about other projects within The Earth Foundation?

The Earth Prize is our first initiative. The second will be The Earth Foundation Awards that will support research endeavours in the environmental sustainability field with grants and scholarships by distributing $300,000 every year to university students and researchers. We are also in the process of creating our Alumni Association, a platform for networking and encouragement amongst our community of passionate and inspiring individuals.

Read more: Unilever’s Rebecca Marmot On The Sustainable Everyday

6. How do you ensure a long term effect and results from the prize?

Through The Earth Prize Alumni we will strengthen ties among its members, offering them access to educational content, mentorship, social events, and professional opportunities. We will be helping them bring their solutions to life, and invite them back to share their impact, successes and their challenging times to the next year’s participants. We believe this will become a very powerful way to accelerate change and showcase the leaders and change-makers of today and tomorrow.

Find out more: www.earth-foundation.org

Lucinda Childs and Philip Glass first created Dance in 1979. Photograph by Jaime Roque de la Cruz

Bringing together a union of three iconic British houses of the arts, Sadler’s Wells, The Royal Opera House and Tate Modern, Van Cleef and Arpels have created a festival, Dance Reflections, presenting different dance performances for two weeks. Candice Tucker was invited to view Dance by Lucinda Childs and Philip Glass. Here she tells us about the experience.

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The story behind Van Cleef and Arpels and dance dates back to the early 20th century when Louis Arpels, who was a great fan of the ballet would take his nephew, Claude, to the Paris Opera. 1967 was the pinnacle for the Maison’s relationship with dance when renowned choreographer, George Balanchine, created the ballet Jewels, in collaboration with Van Cleef & Arpels. Today, the house continues this tradition, supporting Benjamin Millepied’s LA Dance Project since 2012, and starting the FEDORA-Van Cleef & Arpels Prize for Ballet in 2015.

The minimalism of Dance adds to the immersive experience of the performance. Photogrpah by Mehdi Benkler

American composer, Philip Glass and choreographer, Lucinda Childs are both known for their minimalistic approaches. A dark stage and plain white costumes were therefore no surprise. The performance commenced with dancers jumping on to the stage one by one, and then two by two, and so on, in a repetitive motion, in perfect harmony with the music. The routine quickly began to resemble doves flying around a large cage.

Van Cleef and Arpels Ballerina clip, 1993

The performance progressed with a projected film of dancers from the Lyon Opera Ballet, by Sol LeWitt, appearing to mimic the onstage dancers repetitive movements. Suddenly there were ballerinas dancing in the air and in all parts of the stage echoing each others movements. With the repetitive music of Philip Glass, it was a fabulous, unique and almost  hypnotic experience.

A film by Sol LeWitt, of the dancers of the Lyon Opera Ballet projected on to the stage, whilst the dancers from the same school performed. Photograph by Jaime Roque de la Cruz

Dance, which was first performed in 1979, was the perfect demonstration of the link between dance and Van Cleef & Arpels; they are both timeless.

Read more: Van Cleef & Arpels CEO Nicolas Bos on the poetry of jewellery

The evening ended with a spectacular meal at Galvin La Chapelle, arranged by Van Cleef & Arpels to celebrate this momentous occasion.

Find out more: dancereflections-vancleefarpels.com

Cameron Diaz on Patio, Mission Santa Barbara, California ©1995 George Holz

American photographer George Holz, known for his fashion and celebrity portraiture, was once the assistant to the iconic, Helmut Newton. Here he speaks to Maryam Eisler, at the Maker Hotel, Hudson New York, about his close relationship to Newton and how he built his own illustrious career.

Maryam Eisler: George, what is occupying your mind these days?
George Holz: It feels like I’m a bear coming out of a long hibernation. But right now, I feel like the world is my oyster. It’s a nice feeling. I’m in the middle of working on a few projects. One is my book of nudes. I was about to finish it, and then it got sidelined by Covid. This is my second monograph. It’ll be a 40 year retrospective of my nudes. I’m also working on another book project which I’m not at liberty to talk about yet.

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Maryam Eisler: Let’s step back in time to your Newton years. Given that you were one of Helmut’s key assistants, what are the best memories you hold from those years?
George Holz: That’ always a tough question. I think it evolves with time as I step further back and watch what is happening with his legacy. To me, he was like a second father, my photography father, and June (Newton) was my photography mother. They didn’t have kids so they took a few of us under their wing in the 70s. It wasn’t so much about learning technically; it was more about being around him and seeing how he dealt with the models and with the clients. That was not stuff I had learnt at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Just seeing how Helmut dealt with a situation creatively and how he problem-solved was incredible. Still on shoots today, I often think ‘what would Helmut do? How would he handle the situation?’ He also taught me how to look at film and all the behind -the -scenes stuff: making phone calls, casting and location hunting, all of which I did for him. I often recall the Van Halen shoot or tying David Lee Roth up in chains; seeing the photos in a book or a museum often make me think: “Wow I did those chains!” Now that I step back, I realise that I was part of all of that. And then, there was the human aspect of Helmut, something you don’t necessarily pick up on in a museum show or in a documentary.

George Holz photographed at the Maker Hotel in Hudson, New York. Photo by Maryam Eisler

Maryam Eisler: To what would you attribute Newton’s ever continuing relevance in today’s art world? Some may question his motives regarding objectifying women, but it seems that they are far and few in between.
George Holz: We were at a press conference at the Foundation in Berlin in 2019, and some journalists were hurling those types of questions at the panel – which consisted of myself, Mark Arbeit and Just Loomis (the three of us were part of the ‘ Three Boys from Pasadena ‘ exhibition at the foundation ) alongside the director, Matthias Harder, and, publisher, Benedikt Taschen. And, everyone answered the questions in a similar manner: Helmut was very demanding creatively. He loved women, he venerated their beauty and he empowered them. He never took advantage of his power or his position and was always very professional. I think a lot of that had to do with June (his wife) always in the background.

Maryam Eisler: Now onto you. What is your most memorable moment when it comes to your Hollywood-focused body of work?
George Holz: Photographing Brad Pitt fishing in the stream for People magazine around the time of A River Runs Through It … I actually got to give him some pointers on fly fishing, because I’m a big fly fisherman. He was a good student. He wasn’t very famous then. Luckily, I got to photograph many celebrities very early on, at the start of their careers like Madonna, and Angelina Jolie. I worked a lot with Jennifer Aniston. I was lucky to work with InStyle magazine. What a great magazine that was! One of the things that I loved about it was that they often gave me a two-day window to work with somebody because I was photographing them in their home. So, you really got to know them, you met their kids, you saw their whole life. I got Carly Simon in her bathtub with a lobster, just crazy things and great moments.

Brad Pitt, A River Runs Through It, Montana ©1991 George Holz

Maryam Eisler: Ultimately, it boils down to trust between you and your subjects; does it not?
George Holz: It is all about trust, the one big word. A lot of these shoots were done before the internet. It was about having that human rapport with somebody where you would build trust…they liked you, they laughed with you, they saw a couple of polaroids and they would give their ok! Someone like Andie MacDowell I worked with a lot, photographing her for Macy’s catalogues and more. I remember her going to acting classes and I photographed her, her family, her babies. To this day, when she comes to town, she calls, we get dinner together. Lauren Hutton comes to my openings. It’s like old friends; you don’t always see them but they are in your orbit and they’re there for you.

Maryam Eisler: Who would you say best understands your work?
George Holz: My wife Jennifer. She gets me. She organises my crazy ideas and puts them on paper. I’m always able to bounce things off of her. It’s like Helmut and June. Behind every great artist there’s a great partner. She also trusts me. That’s very important because I couldn’t do it on my own.

Madonna, Interview Magazine, Los Angeles, California ©1983 George Holz

Maryam Eisler: Can you talk to me about your fascination with the female form and energy.
George Holz: You (Maryam) have a female gaze on this topic and you get it. I have the male gaze, but we both look at female figures as things of beauty. It’s something I’ve done for so long, and the work has really changed and evolved. It’s becoming more refined. I often look at old contact sheets and there’s always something hidden I find, maybe a lot deeper and more interesting and I often think ‘how did I pass that up’. I remember seeing the big Penn show at The Met and he had several prints of the same image over the years, and he said ‘they’re all my prints; it’s just my perception of what I thought was a beautiful print that changed over thirty years.’ Getting back to the female form, I guess it’s kind of timeless. It’s absolute and pure in its beauty. To me it’s the ultimate portrait. Nothing dates it. I’m kind of wanting to get more stuff in the studio again, like my earlier works with objects and form in shadows and light.

Heather Stewart-Whyte, My What? New York ©1991 George Holz

Maryam Eisler: How do you feel about Instagram? Does it push your boundaries and force you to differentiate further vs. what’s out there?

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

George Holz: I think we are all affected by what we see on Instagram, whether we’re a photographer or not, bombarded by so much visual imagery. What it says to me is that there are a lot of amateurs out there, just shooting and some of it is really interesting work. But it has forced me to re-evaluate my own work again and get back to what I was trained to do, to what I was best at … 40 to 50 years of learning the craft of photography. Getting behind the camera and working with lights. It’s getting back to the basics. That’s where my comfort zone lies.

Jack with Camel, Los Angeles ©1997 George Holz

Maryam Eisler: Now onto your split life between your public life centred around the urban
(New York, LA ..) and your private life on your farm, set against the beauty of the Catskills, away from the rat race.
George Holz: With the internet, everything is instant. So you can still be part of that rat race in a virtual way, and instantaneously step out of it into beautiful nature if you choose to do so. Originally, we got the property as a refuge from the city, a place we would come up to on weekends and then that kind of segued into a more full time situation, first with 9/11, then Covid. The industry also changed as did family life. So, my country home became command central whilst I still continued to travel here and there. In the old days, my studio was in the city, but I was always separated from it. Now, if in the middle of the night I want to look at some contact sheets, I just walk over to the studio and it’s right there.

Jennifer Aniston, Los Angeles ©1995 George Holz

Maryam Eisler: We’re sitting in Hudson Valley, in the midst of its artistic legacy, not too far away from Holz Farm. What are your impressions of this part of the world and why here?
George Holz: I’ve been shooting pictures at my property in upstate New York, for the last 40 years and always loved the history and gorgeous Hudson River School light. Our road has always had artists and musicians and there was always that ‘Je ne sais quoi.’ You can’t put your finger on it, but it’s just a really cool creative place and not many places have that. I think Berlin has that, I think Paris, Milan has that. Venice has always attracted a lot of artists. I think there is a reason why so many artists and musicians flock to Upstate, as opposed to the Hamptons for example. Since Covid, there has been an even bigger exodus of people out of the city. We are seeing a lot more full-timers and there’s a real sense of community now. We have wonderful restaurants. We are sitting here in this beautiful hotel (‘The Maker’), and it kind of feels like we’re back in the city. And yet, the locals keep it real and that too is really important.

Find out more:

@georgeholzofficial

www.georgeholz.com

Unilever, one of the largest suppliers of consumer goods, has committed itself to sustainable ways of working throughout the whole company. Image by Bernard Hermant

Rebecca Marmot is Chief Sustainability Officer at Unilever, the consumer giant whose portfolio spans everything from Dove soap to Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Under Marmot’s leadership, Unilever has made significant interventions in sustainability milestones like the Paris Agreement and the creation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals – yet, she says, much of the innovation is still to be done. Marmot tells Ella Johnson why companies must embrace transparency and collaboration in order to create a truly green value chain

Rebecca Marmot

LUX: What is essential to the success of a company’s ESG agenda?
Rebecca Marmot: Success relies on everyone being on board – from employees to c-suite to investors. For example, we put our Climate Transition Action Plan – which outlines how we propose to reach our net zero target – to an advisory shareholder vote. Over 99% approved it. Making it public increases our credibility, transparency and accountability and helps us engage with stakeholders.

We also recognise that we can’t do this on our own. We need to draw on the ingenuity and experience of experts and peers across the globe to meet our sustainability targets – from specialists creating plastic alternatives to suppliers supporting initiatives to protect and regenerate nature. We know that pioneering new practices requires partnership. We are also calling on governments to accelerate climate action by setting ambitious national renewable energy targets so that consumers can use our products at home with water heated by clean energy.

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LUX: Can planet and profit ever truly go hand in hand?
Rebecca Marmot: The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP), which ran from 2010-2020, contained over 70 time-bound targets spanning issues from waste, water and greenhouse gas reduction, to supporting people with training around sustainable agricultural practices. Over 10 years there were notable achievements – including improving the health and hygiene of well over a billion people – as well as valuable lessons in what does and doesn’t work.

The USLP helped clarify our belief that sustainability can unlock superior performance. The business case is clear. Climate change and inequality are huge global challenges, but they also pose very specific risks to the future of our business: for instance, climate-related adverse weather disrupts supply chains and rising inequality limits prosperity and prospects.

Climate change directly affects the success of a consumer goods businesses by disrupting supply chains. Image by Jonathan Ford

LUX: How do you avoid greenwashing?
Rebecca Marmot: We recognise that we are on a journey – and need to be transparent about our failures as well as our successes. We didn’t reach all of our USLP targets by 2020, but in falling short, we learnt new ways to approach and overcome challenges.  For example, the need to engage in advocacy to decarbonise the grid – rather than just focusing on promoting shorter showers!

Here, reporting can play a useful role in tracking progress and preventing greenwash. We are calling for the adoption of high-quality, standardised non-financial reporting to ensure disclosures are consistent and comparable across companies and to facilitate allocation of capital to the most sustainable companies.

LUX: How is Unilever working to eliminate Scope 1 and 2 emissions – those generated by your operations?
Rebecca Marmot: First, we need to put our own house in order by transforming the way our factories run: investing in new technologies, increasing energy efficiency and switching to renewable energy sources. For instance, biogas generated from the manufacturing of Marmite helps power the boilers at our Burton site in the UK.

We are also innovating through our brands.  Our Clean Future programme  commits us to eliminating fossil fuel derived carbon from cleaning and laundry products by 2030, and we also recently launched the word’s first laundry capsule made from captured and recycled industrial carbon emissions in China in partnership with LanzaTech.

One of the biggest challenges is that the lion’s share of our emissions are outside of our direct control. About 60% of our emissions come from raw materials and packaging. So, to reach our target, we are working across our value chain and engaging suppliers, partners and consumers in our decarbonisation journey.

Unilever World Headquarters, London

LUX: Unilever has substantially more influence over its suppliers than consumers. How do you overcome that challenge?
Rebecca Marmot: When you take your Dove soap home and use it in your shower, then clean your shower with Cif bathroom spray, then reward yourself with a Magnum ice cream, the power used to generate the hot water and run your freezer is the area we have the least control over.

We’ve learnt over the last ten years that our ability to influence consumer emissions can be limited; we can’t control how long they spend in the shower or how they source their energy. But increasingly, consumers want to align their purchasing power with their values. We want to make it easy for them to choose our trusted brands – knowing that they are made with respect for the planet and people.

We can design products that help consumers use less carbon – like concentrated laundry detergents which enable people to wash their clothes at lower temperatures. Washing clothes at 30°C instead of 60°C cuts the GHG emissions per load by as much as 50%. We’ve also taken great strides to eliminate phosphates from our laundry products, one of our most GHG-intensive ingredients, which reduces CO2 emissions by up to 50% per consumer use.

LUX: How is Unilever addressing the ‘S’ of ‘ESG’?
Rebecca Marmot: COVID-19 highlighted vast social inequity and reaffirmed our focus on protecting lives and livelihoods. Last year, we committed to ensure that everyone who directly provides goods and services to Unilever earns at least a living wage or living income by 2030.

It also demonstrated global interdependences and the need to work together. At the beginning of the pandemic, Unilever and the UK government established a £100m partnership – The Hygiene and Behaviour Change Coalition (HBCC) – to provide products, infrastructure and education to help tackle COVID-19. Working with 21 NGOs and UN partners in 37 countries, HBCC has reached over 1.4 billion people and has recently been extended for a second phase. Bringing together the influence and expertise of Government and NGOs, with the brand reach and marketing power of business, has proved truly effective in spreading life-saving programmes.

Unilever’s Positive Beauty row

LUX: Is there a risk that those who are last to take on the costs of a green transition will be winners in the short term?
Rebecca Marmot: Inaction is no longer an option. In a world where the effects of climate change and inequality are glaringly apparent, both ability and license to operate will become dependent on being sustainable.  Research shows that consumers are increasingly shunning companies that aren’t responsible, and employees want to work somewhere that reflects their beliefs. Without action to make supply chains more sustainable, companies simply won’t be able to source the raw materials needed for their products and operations will be stalled by floods and extreme weather. Laggards will likely also be hit by taxes on carbon and virgin plastic which are certainly coming down the line.

We believe the growth opportunities in embracing sustainable business are immense. In our experience, brand purpose grows brand power, and brand power drives market share and sales growth. There is no trade-off.

LUX: Which leadership qualities are necessary to implementing a sustainability strategy while meeting the needs of shareholders?
Rebecca Marmot: Delivering superior performance while creating value for multiple stakeholders requires ingenuity, partnership and, above all, a clear, ambitious plan.

Given how interlinked everything is, we also need to shun silos in favour of systems thinking. For example, we take a holistic approach across climate and nature since we recognise that action to solve one crisis can help to address the other.

Read more: Richard Curtis on the Power of Pensions

We also need to be bold. Last year we established the €1 billion Climate & Nature Fund so that our brands can invest in projects that have a positive and meaningful impact. Knorr will have 50 regenerative agriculture projects over the next five years – supporting farmers and building resilient food chains of the future.

And we need to be innovative – identifying new ways to lower our impact without compromising quality or performance. For example, our R&D teams are using the latest technology to create new means of compacting and reducing the resources used to deliver our products and our Foods business is expanding our plant-based offerings to ensure that sustainable options become accessible to all.

Find out more: www.unilever.com

Left to right: Naoko and Maya Dalla Valle

We taste some of the most admired vintages of Napa Valley, through the decades, with two generations of the owning family of the Dalla Valle estate, Naoko and Maya

Naoko and Maya Dalla Valle make some of the most magical wines in the world. From their vineyards in Rutherford, in California’s Napa Valley, the mother-and-daughter proprietors of the eponymous winery create red wines which combine perfume, subtlety, style and power, that have become cult acquisitions for collectors. They also score high in the increasingly important sustainability stakes, as all the estate’s vines are farmed organically.

Dalla Valle was started by Naoko and her husband Gustav in 1986; it shot onto the wine world map in the early 1990s, when Robert Parker, the super-critic and then the man who could make or break a high-end winery, gave a perfect 100/100 score to their flagship wine, Maya.

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As well as being their most prized wine, made from their best vineyards, Maya was their daughter, then a baby. Thirty years later, Maya is the winemaker and increasingly active in running the estate. Parker no longer makes or breaks a wine’s image, but standards are still the same. The Dalla Valle wines, made of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, come from vineyards on the Rutherford Bench, just above the valley floor of Napa and home to what wine enthusiasts would call some of the best “terroir” in the region, which now produces some of the world’s most expensive wines.

The two wines we tasted on our Zoom tasting and chat are celebrated for an elegance, complexity and sophistication that is not always found in the great (in every sense) wines of the Napa Valley. Below are short extracts of our conversation, and our tasting notes.

LUX: Can you go back in time and tell us about making your first wines?
Naoko Dalla Valle: We created the Cabernet Sauvignon in 1986 commercially. Then 1987, we purchased more land from the neighbour and we planted additional about five acres of Cabernet sauvignon. And that turned out to be the best vineyard on the property and then we combined with that highest quality of the Cabernet franc we produced, and decided to create this special wine called Maya. People think she is named after wine, she came first! We immediately got noticed by Robert Parker and we immediately started getting very high scores and then by 1990, we got 99 points. For the 1992 vintage, we received 100 points from Robert Parker, we were the second winery in America to receive that score. That put us on the map. We have been fortunate to be able to maintain the quality.
Maya Dalla Valle: I would also point out the fact that, my father unfortunately passed away in winter, December 1995. So shortly after we had learnt about this 92 vintage Maya, so it was also a very sentimental moment but also for my father, he passed knowing that we were going to be ok. I am first generation American, both my parents came from different countries [Japan and Italy]. My mother had the choice to sell the winery and go back to Japan to work. We had family there, she could have easily have done that, but she had grown a fondness and a deep love for our property and the vineyard and land and winemaking, that she really took this business to next level.

LUX: What makes your terrain special?
Maya Dalla Valle: We are on the east side of Napa Valley, and it is about 500 feet elevation at the peak. What’s interesting is that this little bench that we sit on is a result of a landslide that occurred four million years ago, from volcanic origin, so we have volcanic iron rich bedrock soil… things are constantly moving. We often see these small boulders pop up in the vineyard each year through the surface. It makes us wonder sometimes if we are farming rocks or farming grapes.

Maya Dalla Valle and her corgis

LUX: You represent a generational change of winemaker. Has there been a generational change of consumer preferences?
Maya Dalla Valle: The younger consumer is not the same kind of buyer as the previous generation. They seek more authenticity and are able to connect with your brand. Then they become more loyal. You need to show them what you are doing in a way they can feel like they connect with you. We talk a lot about our sustainability, we are organic, we did organic certification for our vineyard to show accountability of what we do.

The tasting: (notes by Darius Sanai)

Dalla Valle Maya 1990
Scents of black olive, truffles, perfume top notes, a wine you could wear to the ball at the Chateau de Versailles. At the same time it is rich and dense, but not at all heavy, on the palate. Tastes develop in the mouth for a long time. One of the great wines of the world today, at 32 years old, but I would like to try it again when it is 64. The star of the show.

Dalla Valle Cabernet Sauvignon 1992
Very deep, layered wine, stratified, almost. Lots of muscle, black fruits and herbs. One for Kobe beef, simply grilled, on a Friday evening alone.

Dalla Valle Maya 2010
Like a young Russian prince wearing a cloak. Beautiful but quite closed to start with; opened up after half an hour of conversation, to reveal a complex, surprisingly delicate personality.

Dalla Valle Vineyard

Dalla Valle Cabernet Sauvignon 2010
Quite different to the Maya, remarkable that it is grown from land so nearby. Full and rich, black fruits and mountain herbs, and a zinginess that makes it quite distinctive. To share with an old friend, in your mountainside ranch in Wyoming.

Read more: Luxury Travel Views: Royal Champagne Hotel & Spa, Épernay

Dalla Valle Maya 2018
Expected this to be very closed, as it’s so young, but this is like walking into a jewellery shop, with a multitude of colours of flavour. Dazzling stuff, and you would drink it while celebrating your latest deal, but with a hint of guilt, because it will plainly be so much better in decades.

Dalla Valle Cabernet Sauvignon 2018
A rich Napa cabernet, meaning power and weight, and also with a lightness, meaning people who prefer elegant wines will also enjoy it immensely, particularly over a meal of grilled miso vegetables on the terrace of your Umbrian palazzo on a coolish May evening.

Find out more: dallavallevineyards.com