April 19, 2021
Director Jim Jarmusch and Anthony Vaccarello, the creative director for Saint Laurent, discuss French Water, a new short film collaboration—starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Indya Moore, Julianne Moore, Chloë Sevigny, and Leo Reilly—in this interview with the Quarterly’s Wyatt Allgeier.
Wyatt AllgeierI’ve watched the film multiple times now, and each viewing provides more—it’s a generous experience. Before getting into details, I’m curious how this collaboration came about. Anthony, could you speak to the genesis of the project?
Anthony VaccarelloSince joining Saint Laurent, I’ve been keen to strengthen the relationship between fashion and cinema. For me, Saint Laurent is a house of cinema, of fantasy.
After working with Gaspar Noé and Wong Kar Wai, I wanted to work with an American film director. Jim was the obvious choice to me. I asked him what Saint Laurent meant to him and he mentioned this idea of a dialogue inspired by 1930s French movies. I liked the idea, but wanted to flesh this out so the film was also about women today.
WAJim, once you agreed to sign on, what were the initial steps? Did you begin with a script, casting, the clothes, the location, or some other element?
Jim JarmuschWell, Anthony suggested that I rewatch Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour (1967), reminding me that Yves Saint Laurent had designed the remarkable clothes worn by Catherine Deneuve. Then Anthony sent a file of the clothes—fantastic. So I wrote a few little scripts just based on variations, and the form of the “ronde” (à la Max Ophüls’s film from 1950). Then came the location, and visual ideas were exchanged with Fred Elmes [cinematographer], Mark Friedberg [production designer], and Carter Logan [producer]. Throughout the process, I would text ideas to Anthony for feedback.
WAThe cast is incredible! Legends and wonderful young actors, both. How did the casting process develop?
AVCharlotte Gainsbourg embodies French mystery—a complex woman that we don’t always understand and all the better for that. Charlotte, Julianne, Indya, and Chloë are Saint Laurent in the way they lead their lives. They are independent, with a strong and personal sense of style. I have known Chloë and Julianne since forever, and I discovered Indya more recently. The sulfurous side in them attracts me.
WARight from the beginning, the soundtrack for the video makes a beautiful impression. Could you tell us more about the choices made?
JJNoveller [a solo project of the guitarist Sarah Lipstate] is a musician I’ve followed for some years now. In some ways I see her as a landscape painter, creating dreamlike atmospheres with an electric guitar, loops, layers, and effects. I’ve seen her perform live a number of times. She puts me in an altered state. And the Brian Jonestown Massacre, the brainchild of Anton Newcombe, is a favorite of mine. We used a well-known BJM track, but Anton never stops creating new, mind-bending music.
The project was selfishly born from a deep desire to collaborate with the geniuses of the cinema industry. I have the chance to have access to amazing directors through Saint Laurent and I am not holding back!
Anthony Vaccarello
WAIf you don’t mind giving away some of the mystery, I’m curious to hear about the location—it is marvelous architecturally, and the carpet is fantastic.
JJThe location is an unusual multilevel party space called Guastavino’s, located on East 59th Street in Manhattan, right under the bridge. Years ago Bill Murray told me about it, and about some wild parties there in previous decades, but I’d never been inside. Mark Friedberg suggested it, and we were able to shoot there because nobody, obviously, was throwing big parties during the pandemic. Yeah, the trippy carpet interested me, and it influenced color and lighting choices.
WAWe have to talk about the clothing; each of the characters feels so clearly defined through the fashion—how did you two collaborate on this aspect of the project? Did the actors themselves have some say? They are so quintessentially themselves, but with a hint of the uncanny.
AVIt was all done in very free and spontaneous way. Very selfishly again, and instinctively, too. Of course, the idea was to dress these characters, but there weren’t any particular demands regarding how they should be filmed wearing these clothes. Clothes play a role in the film, of course, but they don’t overcome the characters. It’s a short movie, not a fashion movie.
JJInitially Anthony sent about fifty images for the selection—it was impressive. I did have some favorites, but they were all so cool. Once the cast was finalized, it was really Anthony selecting several looks for and with each actor. I built into the script the idea that their clothes would change several times, “haphazardly.”
WAI loved the wink to our present condition at the end, when Chloë, Julianne, and Indya put on their face masks before leaving the building. Was this built into the script, or was it improvised to some degree?
AVI don’t want to produce a fashion film. I feel like many fashion brands are creating content only for their social media channels. This is not the case with me. I have a profound love of cinema. This film has no commercial ambition and that scene was a way to make it even more realistic considering what’s happening in our lives. The project was selfishly born from a deep desire to collaborate with the geniuses of the cinema industry. I have the chance to have access to amazing directors through Saint Laurent and I am not holding back!
In this video, Jenny Saville sits down inside her first major exhibition in Venice to discuss how the great Venetian artists of the past and the city’s heritage influence her work. The show brings together more than thirty canvases and works on paper from the 1990s to the present, tracing the development of her practice, which is deeply rooted in the history of painting.
On April 16, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, opened the first midcareer survey of Derrick Adams’s multidisciplinary practice. Covering over twenty years of work, the exhibition, titled View Master, brings together the artist’s painting, sculpture, collage, performance, and video, as well as a vibrant new commission created for the museum’s façade. Ahead of the opening, Adams met with Tessa Bachi Haas, cocurator of the survey, to discuss his formative experiences with television, the impact of his work in arts education on his practice, and the importance of taking a more complex, more joyful, and more expansive approach to Black American life and culture.
On March 28, a major exhibition of Jenny Saville’s work opened at Ca’ Pesaro–Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna in Venice, bringing together nearly thirty paintings from the 1990s to the present. The exhibition is curated by Elisabetta Barisoni, head of the museums division at Venice’s Ca’ Pesaro, Museo Fortuny, and head of MUVE in Mestre. Saville’s monumental canvases are set in dialogue with the great Venetian artists of the past, creating a unique encounter between contemporary painting and the city’s artistic heritage. Here, the artist speaks with Stefania Ventra, professor with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, about her early trips to Venice, the radicality of Titian’s painting, and depicting emotional truth.
Jeff Koons tells Alison McDonald about his appreciation for the pioneering artist and thinker Marcel Duchamp.
Andrew Durbin’s dual biography, The Wonderful World That Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, tracks the convergences and divergences in the lives of the two artists, from their first meeting in Coral Cables, Florida, in 1956 through their generative romantic and creative partnership in New York, Italy, Fire Island, and beyond. Ahead of the release, Durbin met with the Quarterly’s Wyatt Allgeier to speak about the development of the project, the sublime noncompliance of these two artists, and the motifs of love, death, and rebirth that weave through the telling of their story.
The Loewe Foundation Craft Prize celebrates its ninth edition with an exhibition at the National Gallery Singapore.
Daniel Roseberry, the creative director of Schiaparelli, met with the Quarterly’s Derek C. Blasberg at the maison’s historic headquarters at 21 place Vendôme, Paris, following the Schiaparelli Fall/Winter 2026–27 ready-to-wear show. Since taking the helm in 2019, Roseberry has been credited with advancing the heritage of the house through unpredictable sculptural designs that carry Elsa Schiaparelli’s Surrealist spirit into a new century. The pair discuss the much-anticipated exhibition Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art, now on view at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, as well as Roseberry’s early exposures to art, his continued dedication to drawing, and the enduring legacy of Elsa Schiaparelli’s daring vision.
Helter Skelter—an exhibition at Fondazione Prada’s Venetian venue, Ca’ Corner della Regina—marks the first creative dialogue between two visionaries of American art, Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince. The show explores the grit, grift, violence, and ingenuity of American culture through more than fifty works, including photography, video, and large-scale installations that interrogate themes of race, gender, media, and politics. In the interview below, Nancy Spector, the exhibition’s curator, speaks about the shared motifs—from apocalyptic sunsets to a fascination with “monstrosity”—that led her to pair these artists for the first time.
A conversation between Theaster Gates and Jessica Bell Brown, with an introduction by Sydney Stutterheim.
Valentina Castellani speaks with the Quarterly’s Alison McDonald about her new book, Trading Beauty: Art Market Histories from the Altar to the Gallery. The illustrated survey traces the evolution of the Western art market from the medieval era to the present day.
Sally Mann joined novelist Amor Towles in a conversation about her widely celebrated new book, Art Work: On the Creative Life (2025), at an event hosted by the New School and the Strand in New York. Published by Abrams, Art Work is about the challenges and pleasures of the creative process. Its mix of illuminating stories, practical advice, and life lessons, illustrated throughout with photographs, letters, and journal entries, offers insights into Mann’s own experience of making art. Here, Mann and Towles speak about the writing process, historical ghosts, and fortunate mistakes.
Ahead of Persephone, an exhibition of new paintings by Mary Weatherford inside Hong Kong’s historic Pedder Building, the Quarterly’s Wyatt Allgeier met with Weatherford and the architect Mark Lee to talk about their collaboration. Here, they discuss how custom architectural interventions—from mirrored columns to strategic light play—transform the gallery, evoking Persephone’s mythic journey through the underworld and back into the light of spring.