Cartier at the Mostra: the art of intertwining worlds

On the lungomare Guglielmo Marconi, the “Croisette” of Venice’s Mostra, things are relaxed. No screams nor crowds. Venetians love their festival, and stand by amused, while celebrities walk among them, with no masks or black sunglasses, to the Palazzo del Cinema. Since 1932, guests of the Venice Mostra have been used to celebrating the end of summer with glamor. Ever since “Doctor Jekyll and M. Hyde”, the very first film to be shown on screens at the Lido, the Venice International Film Festival’s story has attracted great directors and stars worldwide. Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Franck Capra, Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rosselini, Rita Hayworth, Anna Magnani, Jean Cocteau: all of them walked the red carpet. In 1951, the Mostra launched Japanese cinema, thanks to the Lion d’Or awarded to the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa for his film Rashōmon.

The Mostra’s story is long. It is indeed the oldest in the history of festivals. None of the major crisis have ever interrupted it. Not even the pandemic, as the Mostra was held in 2020 despite Covid-19, in a smaller format. And this year, the artistic ambition is great. All the stars of motion pictures are present. All have come to find the glamor and vertigo of great premiere nights, along with the unique “dolcezza”.

Even great partnerships have made their comeback. Cartier chose to “unleash” its panther to meet the Mostra’s Lion and launch a new creative exploration of cinematographic art alongside the festival, time-tested with the Deauville festival up until 2014. “It is a strong presence for Cartier in Venice, explained Arnaud Carrez, marketing and communications director of Cartier International. It is not only limited to a red carpet and great parties, it is also a multidimensional platform for artistic exchanges and conversations. The Cartier Foundation is present along our side over the fortnight and the engagement of the Maison will take different shapes through the Mostra, in architecture, art and as of today with cinema.”

The ambition of the brand as to forge ties with the arts has been constant for decades and has largely accelerated since the arrival of the Chairman and CEO of Cartier International Cyrille Vigneron.

Today, Boulevard Raspail in the 14th arrondissement of Paris is no longer the only headquarters of artistic thinking for the Cartier Foundation. Hervé Chandès, its managing director, has since then opened and taken creation spaces and exhibitions to the international level. The current program of the Cartier Foundation for contemporary art at the Milan Triennale “Citizens” is scheduled to last, the original themed creation “Trees” has met tremendous success at the Shanghai Power Station of Art in China and the personal exhibition of the Japanese artist Yokoo Tadanori, in partnership with 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo is showcasing over a hundred portraits of artists, thinkers, critics, scientists, and other personalities that have left marks over the 36-year-long history of the Cartier Foundation.

Art has been at the center of creation for over 40 years, but at the Mostra, Cartier has made it the cement of its collaborations. Over fifteen original artistic projects in cinema have founded for over two decades the singular ties between the Maison and the motion pictures. The filmmaker David Lynch offered “The Air is on Fire” to the Cartier Foundation in 2007, and even the Japanese plastic artist, actor and director Takeshi Kitano, whose foundation already exhibited his universe in 2010, presented the delirious “Gosse de Peintre”. More recently, the film “La Nature”, new feature film by Artavadz Pelechian was commissioned by the Cartier foundation and the ZKM Filminstitut, which will be shown in New York, then at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival in November. “Emotions felt while watching a cinematographic piece are vibrant, they feel like love, which makes us alive” said Cyrille Vigneron during the party held in honor of his guests attending the Mostra, in the private mansion overseeing the Grand canal.

Of course, the red carpet is also a way for the brand to get closer and to create links with the public. Arnaud Carrez continues: “Friends of the brand, actors and actresses are present at the Mostra with us, including Rami Malek or Jake Gyllenhaal, with whom we have been nurturing strong ties since 2018. We often cocreate artistic projects with them. It is the case with the French director and actress Mélanie Laurent. We are producing two creations with her. An original opera in virtual reality and a film about women, which will be projected at the Women’s pavilion which Cartier elaborated for the Dubai Expo 2020. The end of this week will also be the opportunity to award the Cartier Glory Prize to the Filmmaker to Ridley Scott, a prize which we also hope will celebrate young artists in the future. Cartier is a talent seeker; it is also our role.”