CHANEL Connects

In this episode, listeners meet renowned painter and critic David Salle. For more than five decades, the artist has been creating across disciplines: on the canvas, behind the camera, and now, in dialogue with artificial intelligence. He connects with Yana Peel, President of Arts, Culture & Heritage at CHANEL for a live conversation recorded at LACMA in Los Angeles. Set against this backdrop, they discuss Salle’s formative years at the legendary art school founded by Walt Disney, his collaborations—from Martin Scorsese to AI engineers—and the enduring power of artistic intelligence.

Recorded live at Guggenheim New York, celebrated artists Sarah Sze and Julie Mehretu connect with Yana Peel, President of Arts, Culture & Heritage at CHANEL. Through her immersive installations, Sze redefines how we experience memory and perception, using everything from found photos to paperclips. Mehretu—a painter and printmaker—also creates at scale, layering history and politics to champion the arts as an essential force for change. The conversation moves from New York in the 90s as a home of creativity, to both artists’ commitment to philanthropy, and abstraction as a space for radical invention.

In this episode, listeners meet artist Matthew Lutz-Kinoy and Michelin-starred chef Mauro Colagreco, who is also a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. Colagreco’s culinary philosophy is rooted in his Argentine heritage and the local French countryside, with a celebrated restaurant located in the town next to La Pausa. Paris-based artist Lutz-Kinoy also draws inspiration from his French surroundings, working across disciplines from performance and painting to ceramics. Their shared values of protecting nature and finding beauty in the everyday charge a conversation about curiosity and discovery as essential human traits.

For episode two, ballerina Francesca Hayward connects with artist Allison Katz. Hayward’s rapid ascent to Principal Dancer of The Royal Ballet is testament to her exceptional talent and stage presence. Katz has also gained international recognition—her work explores memory across cultures and centuries and is held in the collection of Tate Modern in London, Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, among many others. Together, they discuss the parallels between dance and painting and the importance of staying true to your vision.

For Season 5, listeners are transported to La Pausa, Gabrielle Chanel’s "ideal Mediterranean villa" on the French Riviera. The new season features changemakers across disciplines: Academy Award-winning actor Lupita Nyong’o, Emanuele Coccia – philosopher and professor, Francesca Hayward of The Royal Ballet, artist Allison Katz, performance art duo Gerard & Kelly, Lauren Collins – writer at The New Yorker, artist Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, Michelin-starred chef Mauro Colagreco, and American artist Adam Pendleton. Episodes will be released weekly from July 16.

At the Palazzo Persico, the world-famous designers Michael Rock and Irma Boom reflect on Venice’s pivotal role in the history of book publishing – and its influence on generations of contemporary artists. Michael is the co-founder of 2x4, while Boom has designed more than 300 books across her career. Together, they explore how, more than 500 years ago, Venice revolutionised art, a legacy that continues to this day.

What makes a great curator, and what brings them to the Venice Biennale, without fail, for the past two decades? In this episode, distinguished curators from the museum world connect to share their stories of seeing and discovery. Simon Castets, Director of Strategic Initiatives at LUMA Arles in France, speaks with Courtney J. Martin, Executive Director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in New York. Together, they discuss how the biennale shapes the coming trends in the international art scene.

Julien Creuzet, one of the world’s leading contemporary artists, connects with Alvin Li, Curator of International Art at the Tate Modern in London. Julien is a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris and the first French-Caribbean artist to represent France at the Venice Biennale. Supported by the CHANEL Culture Fund, his exhibition blends sculpture and film with poetry and music, transforming the France Pavilion. In a conversation with Alvin Li at Palazzo Pisani Moretta, Julien revisits his childhood on the island of Martinique and reflects on art’s unique capacity to unearth untold stories.

Recorded at Venice’s Conservatorio di Musica, this episode explores art collectives, performance and the power of sound. Actress Vicky Krieps, star of Phantom Thread and Corsage, connects with the artist and musician Andrea Mancini and Every Island art collective, who are presenting work at the Luxembourg Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale. Vicky reveals how she writes music to better understand her characters, while Every Island discuss how sound enables them to work in a truly collective way.

Welcome to Season 4 of CHANEL Connects.This series takes you to the Venice Biennale—the essential cultural event of 2024— where leading artists, curators, gallerists, and thinkers join CHANEL’s flagship arts and culture podcast. Through a series of generous and revealing conversations, each episode explores the defining issues of our time. Listen in now, and let’s connect!

Barry Jenkins and Isaac Julien are two giants of filmmaking, whose creative sensibilities have much in common. Both have produced work that has profoundly shaped contemporary culture: Jenkins’s 2016 Academy Award-winning film Moonlight is a sensitive portrayal of Black masculinity, while Julien has been at the forefront of Black British filmmaking for over three decades. In this episode, we bring them together for the very first time, in London, for a conversation about portraying vulnerability, the art of adapting literary texts, and the influence of beauty, music, and memory on their work.

Artist Amy Sillman is renowned for her oil paintings that defy categorisation. She has been at the helm of a new wave of artists - most of them women - who over the last decade have reinvigorated abstraction. Amy connects with celebrated writer Sheila Heti, whose books, including Pure Colour (2022) and Motherhood (2018), blur the lines between fiction and memoir, creating new and original ways to understand lived experience: motherhood, art, and mortality. In this episode, they discuss how they each embrace ambiguity with purpose.

In this episode we bring together a cinematic legend and a rising star: the Academy Award-winning actor Penélope Cruz, whose performances in independent film and Hollywood blockbusters have been captivating audiences for more than three decades. She connects with Carla Simón, a director who has introduced Catalan cinema to new, global audiences by drawing on her rural upbringing. The duo connects in Madrid for the first time and discuss politics, parenthood, and the bravery of taking the space to breathe.