MILAN — “I really like magnificence, it’s not my fault,” Valentino Garavani famously stated when filmed for the Matt Tyrnauer 2008 documentary on his life, “The Final Emperor.”
Quick ahead to 2025 and sweetness continues to be a magnet for the couturier and his longtime companion, Giancarlo Giammetti.
That phrase will now be a centerpiece of PM23, the venue in Rome that hosts the Fondazione Valentino Garavani e Giancarlo Giammetti’s cultural initiatives. Mirrors bearing these phrases shall be commissioned as an art work to be positioned on the entrance of PM23, revealed Giammetti in an interview.
“’Magnificence creates magnificence’ is the tenet of the Fondazione, it’s on the middle of all of it, as inspiration and progress,” Giammetti stated. “The area will host all cultural actions supported by the Fondazione with exhibitions, occasions, workshops and initiatives devoted to the celebration of magnificence in all its kinds, to protect it and advertise for the longer term.”
Dubbed PM23 from the deal with of the constructing in Piazza Mignanelli 23, subsequent to the storied Valentino headquarters in Rome, the inspiration will stage its first occasion within the area in Could.
Palazzo Gabrielli Mignanelli is a late Renaissance palace constructed round 1575 close to the town’s landmark Spanish Steps. The Valentino style home is a separate entity and enterprise from the inspiration. Giammetti stated, nevertheless, that clothes from the Valentino archive, which stays the property of the couture home, shall be over time displayed by the inspiration at PM23.
The inspiration was established in 2016 as an entity with a philanthropic mission and is taking form with its first exhibition area in Rome, the place its actions will happen. After one yr of conservative restoration works as a multidisciplinary area masking 10,800 sq. toes, it’s the “beating coronary heart of the cultural actions of the Fondazione,” Giammetti stated. “It’s a veritable museum of artwork and style.”
The principle entrance of PM23.
Reflecting Garavani’s and Giammetti’s aesthetic imaginative and prescient, the inspiration shall be dedicated to a few key pillars: the help of social and philanthropic initiatives; enhancing the humanities and tradition, and expertise schooling and backing.
“Our purpose is to carry two exhibitions per yr and dedicate three months to workshops and contests to assist younger abilities discover their voice and supply them with scholarships,” Giammetti stated.
The exhibitions and methods of the inspiration are conceived by Giammetti, who shall be flanked every time by curators. For the inaugural exhibition, which pays tribute to the legacy of Garavani and Giammetti, the curators are Anna Coliva, beforehand director of Galleria Borghese, and Pamela Golbin, beforehand head curator of the Division of Vogue and Textiles of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, respectively answerable for artwork and style.
The occasion “will mix style and modern artwork marking the start of a program of exhibitions that may make PM23 a vacation spot for a world public and some extent of reference for creativity and rising expertise,” Giammetti stated.
Giammetti underscored that staging an exhibition “doesn’t imply solely to assemble a string of lovely issues, as there must be a which means, a union between style and artwork, by no means contrasting. And a few exhibitions shall be sudden. As [artist Francis] Picabia stated, ‘If you wish to have clear concepts change them as usually as your shirts.’”
“The Fondazione is self-funded, which permits us to have freedom of selection in deciding on friends and artists and within the decision-making, which is essential to us,” continued Giammetti, who holds the function of vp of the inspiration, whereas Garavani is its president.
They’ve collected artworks all through their lives, and Giammetti stated they may also show a few of their private masterpieces at PM23.
Working with native and worldwide organizations, current initiatives of the inspiration vary from the help of hospitals such because the Bambin Gesù and the Policlinico Gemelli, each in Rome, and supplementing the earnings of households in want within the Italian capital. It’s also dedicated to defending cultural establishments such because the Valentino Garavani theater in Voghera.
An archival picture of Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti.
In 2020, the inspiration donated 1 million euros to the Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli hospital in Rome to help the brand new Columbus COVID 2 unit, which was established by the well being care middle to deal with COVID-19 sufferers.
In 2019, the inspiration additionally dedicated funding to the CFDA’s Vogue Manufacturing Initiative, connecting rising American designers to manufacturing assets.
