Compelling with Katy Wellesley Wesley – Details, episodes & analysis

What does it take to transform a wild dream into a thriving slow luxury hospitality business? In this episode, host Katy Wellesley Wesley speaks with her friend and former colleague, Lena Evstafieva, founder of the extraordinary Villa Lena.

Lena, a former director at Pace Gallery, shares how she leveraged her creative background to build a hospitality brand unlike any other. They discuss the ambitious decision to combine a hotel with a multidisciplinary artist residency, the challenges of fostering organic collaboration, and the importance of hiring the right team. Lena reveals how Villa Lena's growth was driven by a community of creative "pollinators" who spread the word organically.

This conversation is a compelling look at how art, nature, and community can come together to create a powerful, enduring legacy, especially at a time when the hospitality industry is projected to reach $7.5 trillion by 2029, with a strong trend towards experience-based travel.

• (00:00) - Welcome to Compelling
• (02:42) - The Unique Artist Residency
• (04:13) - Challenges and Successes
• (06:50) - Expanding the Residency
• (08:07) - Balancing Hospitality and Creativity
• (11:36) - Community and Collaboration
• (15:42) - Nature and Sustainability
• (18:05) - Selecting Collaborators
• (20:35) - The Future of Villa Lena
• (23:46) - Balancing Renovation and Tradition
• (25:07) - Navigating the Hospitality Industry
• (30:39) - The Importance of a Strong Team
• (32:36) - Lessons in Decision Making
• (39:05) - The Value of Friendships

Lena Evstafieva: A former curator at the Garage Museum and a director at Pace Gallery in London, Lena Evstafieva is the visionary founder of Villa Lena Hotel and Foundation. Leveraging her extensive network and creative background, she transformed a family-owned Tuscan estate into a unique hotel and a not-for-profit artist residency. She is also an art collector with a focus on supporting emerging and female artists.

Visit Villa Lena

Katy Wellesley Wesley: With over 18 years of leadership across galleries, foundations, and startups, Katy has built a career shaped by curiosity and a drive to explore new ideas. She spent a decade at leading commercial galleries—first at Gagosian, then at Pace, where she was Director of Exhibitions in London. She went on to lead the Villa Lena Foundation in Italy as Director, before joining the founding team of ROKBOX, a pioneering environmentally focused art logistics startup, as Sales Director. After relocating to Paris six years ago, Katy developed a strong interest in the intersection of art and luxury. To deepen this focus, she recently completed an Executive Master’s in Luxury Management and Design Innovation, a joint program between ESSEC Business School and Parsons School of Design. She now works as a consultant to brands, artists, foundations, and collectors. Among her clients is the legendary art publisher Cahiers d’Art, where she heads Commercial Partnerships.

Compelling is proudly in partnership with Cahiers d’Art.

Compelling is produced in collaboration with Cahiers d’Art, the iconic Paris-based art publisher founded in 1926, home of the Catalogue Raisonné of Picasso and most recently the Frank Gehry Drawings Catalogue Raisonné. At the heart of it's publishing program is the Cahiers d'Art Revue, one of the most significant and longest-standing annual art publications of the last century. In 2026, Cahiers d’Art will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a series of major publications, projects and exhibitions in collaboration with leading global institutions, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the MoMA in New York City and the Musée Picasso in Paris.

Visit Cahiers d’Art

Art direction by Eddie Harrop Studio
Website and Production by Story Ninety-Four

What does the day-to-day reality of a conceptual art studio actually look like?

In this bonus episode of Compelling, host Katy Wellesley-Wesley asks Noémie Goudal to pull back the curtain on her Paris studio and the team behind the illusions. Noémie describes a lean permanent setup, a studio manager, rotating interns and a deep bench of freelance specialists that scales to meet each project. From the optical engineer who calculates the precise dimensions of her paper backdrops, to the pyrotechnician who stages controlled explosions, to the iconographer who brought order to years of chaotic research, each collaborator opens a new field of knowledge that feeds back into the work.

Katy also asks whether the number of women among Noémie's key collaborators is deliberate. The balance, she says, is organic rather than engineered. A quick, candid glimpse into how large-scale art is actually made.

Noémie Goudal: Noémie Goudal is a French conceptual artist whose photographs, films, performances and sculptures construct illusionistic interventions in the landscape, underpinned by research at the intersection of ecology, anthropology and paleoclimatology. She graduated with an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art in 2010, after studying graphic design at Central Saint Martins. Goudal was shortlisted for the Prix Marcel Duchamp 2024 at Centre Pompidou, where she premiered the films Grand Vide and Supra Strata. Her Artangel-commissioned installation The Story of Fixity is touring to Le Portique in Le Havre for Normandie Impressionniste 2026, with further exhibitions at the Pola Foundation in Japan and a major monographic survey opening at the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, in 2027.

Visit Noémie Goudal

Katy Wellesley Wesley: With over 18 years of leadership across galleries, foundations, and startups, Katy has built a career shaped by curiosity and a drive to explore new ideas. She spent a decade at leading commercial galleries—first at Gagosian, then at Pace, where she was Director of Exhibitions in London. She went on to lead the Villa Lena Foundation in Italy as Director, before joining the founding team of ROKBOX, a pioneering environmentally focused art logistics startup, as Sales Director. After relocating to Paris six years ago, Katy developed a strong interest in the intersection of art and luxury. To deepen this focus, she recently completed an Executive Master’s in Luxury Management and Design Innovation, a joint program between ESSEC Business School and Parsons School of Design. She now works as a consultant to brands, artists, foundations, and collectors. Among her clients is the legendary art publisher Cahiers d’Art, where she heads Commercial Partnerships.

Compelling is proudly in partnership with Cahiers d’Art.

Compelling is produced in collaboration with Cahiers d’Art, the iconic Paris-based art publisher founded in 1926, home of the Catalogue Raisonné of Picasso and most recently the Frank Gehry Drawings Catalogue Raisonné. At the heart of it's publishing program is the Cahiers d'Art Revue, one of the most significant and longest-standing annual art publications of the last century. This year, Cahiers d’Art will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a series of major publications, projects and exhibitions in collaboration with leading global institutions, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the MoMA in New York City and the Musée Picasso in Paris.

Visit Cahiers d’Art

Art direction by Eddie Harrop Studio
Website and Production by Story Ninety-Four

What drives an artist to build vast illusions in real landscapes only to film them as they burn, melt and dissolve?

In this episode of Compelling, host Katy Wellesley-Wesley sits down in Paris with French conceptual artist Noémie Goudal, whose photographs, films and performances probe how landscapes are formed, transformed and imagined. They trace her path from a darkroom hobby in late-1990s Paris, to Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art, and to her shortlisting for the Prix Marcel Duchamp 2024 at Centre Pompidou.

Noémie unpacks the rigour behind series such as Cascade, Phoenix, Anima and the Artangel-commissioned The Story of Fixity, currently touring to Le Portique in Le Havre for the 2026 Normandie Impressionniste festival. She reflects on collaboration with director Maëlle Poésy and aerial artist Chloé Moglia, the role of paleoclimatology and the water cycle in her research, and what it means to build a first monograph spanning 17 years of practice ahead of her 2027 Norton Museum survey.

• (00:00) - Welcome to Compelling
• (02:07) - Growing up between Architecture and Theatre
• (04:56) - St Martin's, the Royal College and Finding Space in London
• (06:20) - Cascade and the Birth of Constructed Photography
• (10:34) - Why Real-Time Illusions Matter More than Photoshop
• (13:59) - Building Anima with Maëlle Poésy and Chloé Moglia
• (20:28) - Paleoclimatology, Water and Letting Research Click
• (26:45) - Building a First Monograph across 17 Years
• (33:52) - Inside the Prix Marcel Duchamp 2024
• (39:56) - Influences from Theatre to Marfa and Las Pozas
• (42:46) - Hard Work over Talent and the Discipline of Finishing
• (51:15) - Le Portique, Pola Foundation and What Comes Next

Noémie Goudal: Noémie Goudal is a French conceptual artist whose photographs, films, performances and sculptures construct illusionistic interventions in the landscape, underpinned by research at the intersection of ecology, anthropology and paleoclimatology. She graduated with an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art in 2010, after studying graphic design at Central Saint Martins. Goudal was shortlisted for the Prix Marcel Duchamp 2024 at Centre Pompidou, where she premiered the films Grand Vide and Supra Strata. Her Artangel-commissioned installation The Story of Fixity is touring to Le Portique in Le Havre for Normandie Impressionniste 2026, with further exhibitions at the Pola Foundation in Japan and a major monographic survey opening at the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, in 2027.

Visit Noémie Goudal

Katy Wellesley Wesley: With over 18 years of leadership across galleries, foundations, and startups, Katy has built a career shaped by curiosity and a drive to explore new ideas. She spent a decade at leading commercial galleries—first at Gagosian, then at Pace, where she was Director of Exhibitions in London. She went on to lead the Villa Lena Foundation in Italy as Director, before joining the founding team of ROKBOX, a pioneering environmentally focused art logistics startup, as Sales Director. After relocating to Paris six years ago, Katy developed a strong interest in the intersection of art and luxury. To deepen this focus, she recently completed an Executive Master’s in Luxury Management and Design Innovation, a joint program between ESSEC Business School and Parsons School of Design. She now works as a consultant to brands, artists, foundations, and collectors. Among her clients is the legendary art publisher Cahiers d’Art, where she heads Commercial Partnerships.

Compelling is proudly in partnership with Cahiers d’Art.

Compelling is produced in collaboration with Cahiers d’Art, the iconic Paris-based art publisher founded in 1926, home of the Catalogue Raisonné of Picasso and most recently the Frank Gehry Drawings Catalogue Raisonné. At the heart of it's publishing program is the Cahiers d'Art Revue, one of the most significant and longest-standing annual art publications of the last century. This year, Cahiers d’Art will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a series of major publications, projects and exhibitions in collaboration with leading global institutions, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the MoMA in New York City and the Musée Picasso in Paris.

Visit Cahiers d’Art

Art direction by Eddie Harrop Studio
Website and Production by Story Ninety-Four

What does it take to protect a legacy?

In this episode of Compelling, host Katy Wellesley Wesley speaks with Patrick Frey, Creative Director and President Emeritus of La Maison Pierre Frey, about the unpredictable, joyful mystery of creation. Patrick shares how he grew up learning to see: travelling through Europe with his interior‑designer mother, absorbing architecture, landscapes, and museums, and developing an instinct for beauty that later shaped a global design house.

They explore how a company rooted in 1935 Paris remains nimble and continues to surprise: making decisive creative calls with instinct, thinking globally and looking back at heritage design as well as thinking about innovation. Patrick discusses the continuation of the business as control passes to the third generation, the importance of stopping to really look, and why there is no reliable formula for what becomes a bestseller.

• (00:00) - Welcome to Compelling
• (00:56) - Introducing Patrick Frey and Maison Pierre Frey
• (02:58) - Founding Pierre Frey and the Early Export Mindset
• (04:40) - Learning to See: Travel, Architecture, and Taste
• (07:22) - Apprenticeship and Starting From Scratch in the US
• (09:27) - Leadership, Succession, and Working With Family
• (12:16) - Export, National Style, and Growing Beyond France
• (17:15) - Heritage as Fuel for Modern Creation
• (19:30) - Why You Never Know What Will Sell
• (24:00) - Inspiration, Streets, and Staying Open to the World
• (31:00) - The Future of Interiors

Patrick Frey: Patrick Frey is the Creative Director and President Emeritus of La Maison Pierre Frey, the Paris-based family house founded in 1935 and known worldwide for fabrics, wallpapers, rugs, carpets, and furniture of the highest quality and most refined taste. He became artistic director in 1969 and expanded the company’s global reach while keeping a strong commitment to craft, quality and design-led experimentation.

Visit Pierre Frey

Katy Wellesley Wesley: With over 18 years of leadership across galleries, foundations, and startups, Katy has built a career shaped by curiosity and a drive to explore new ideas. She spent a decade at leading commercial galleries—first at Gagosian, then at Pace, where she was Director of Exhibitions in London. She went on to lead the Villa Lena Foundation in Italy as Director, before joining the founding team of ROKBOX, a pioneering environmentally focused art logistics startup, as Sales Director. After relocating to Paris six years ago, Katy developed a strong interest in the intersection of art and luxury. To deepen this focus, she recently completed an Executive Master’s in Luxury Management and Design Innovation, a joint program between ESSEC Business School and Parsons School of Design. She now works as a consultant to brands, artists, foundations, and collectors. Among her clients is the legendary art publisher Cahiers d’Art, where she heads Commercial Partnerships.

Compelling is proudly in partnership with Cahiers d’Art.

Compelling is produced in collaboration with Cahiers d’Art, the iconic Paris-based art publisher founded in 1926, home of the Catalogue Raisonné of Picasso and most recently the Frank Gehry Drawings Catalogue Raisonné. At the heart of it's publishing program is the Cahiers d'Art Revue, one of the most significant and longest-standing annual art publications of the last century. In 2026, Cahiers d’Art will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a series of major publications, projects and exhibitions in collaboration with leading global institutions, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the MoMA in New York City and the Musée Picasso in Paris.

Visit Cahiers d’Art

Art direction by Eddie Harrop Studio
Website and Production by Story Ninety-Four

In memory of Martin Parr (23 May 1952 - 6 December 2025). This interview was recorded before his death. 

How does a chance encounter on a doorstep evolve into one of the most compelling collaborations?

In this bonus episode of Compelling, we go behind the scenes with Lee Shulman on a year-long filmmaking journey that saw Lee kidnap the legendary Martin Parr to revisit the locations of his early career. We explore the making of I am Martin Parr and the book Deja Vu, uncovering the raw, sometimes brutal honesty that defines their friendship.

Lee Shulman: Lee Shulman is the Founder and Creative Director of The Anonymous Project, containing nearly a million Kodachrome slides. A London-born, Paris-based visual artist and award-winning filmmaker, his expertise lies in curating and recontextualising amateur photography through immersive installations, books, and collaborative art projects. His recent work includes the collaboration Being There with Omar Victor Diop and directing the documentary film I Am Martin Parr.

Visit the Anonymous Project

Katy Wellesley Wesley: With over 18 years of leadership across galleries, foundations, and startups, Katy has built a career shaped by curiosity and a drive to explore new ideas. She spent a decade at leading commercial galleries—first at Gagosian, then at Pace, where she was Director of Exhibitions in London. She went on to lead the Villa Lena Foundation in Italy as Director, before joining the founding team of ROKBOX, a pioneering environmentally focused art logistics startup, as Sales Director. After relocating to Paris six years ago, Katy developed a strong interest in the intersection of art and luxury. To deepen this focus, she recently completed an Executive Master’s in Luxury Management and Design Innovation, a joint program between ESSEC Business School and Parsons School of Design. She now works as a consultant to brands, artists, foundations, and collectors. Among her clients is the legendary art publisher Cahiers d’Art, where she heads Commercial Partnerships.

Compelling is proudly in partnership with Cahiers d’Art.

Compelling is produced in collaboration with Cahiers d’Art, the iconic Paris-based art publisher founded in 1926, home of the Catalogue Raisonné of Picasso and most recently the Frank Gehry Drawings Catalogue Raisonné. At the heart of it's publishing program is the Cahiers d'Art Revue, one of the most significant and longest-standing annual art publications of the last century. In 2026, Cahiers d’Art will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a series of major publications, projects and exhibitions in collaboration with leading global institutions, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the MoMA in New York City and the Musée Picasso in Paris.

Visit Cahiers d’Art

Art direction by Eddie Harrop Studio
Website and Production by Story Ninety-Four

What role do books play in shaping a life devoted to art?

In this bonus episode of Compelling, host Katy Wellesley Wesley speaks with Staffan Ahrenberg, owner and publisher of Cahiers d'Art, for a quick-fire conversation about the books, habits and dreams that define his approach to art and life. He discusses the formative impact of Malevich's The Non-Objective World and Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, as well as novels such as Camus's L'Étranger and García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Staffan also reveals his unrealised architectural ambitions, including building the Le Corbusier museum originally commissioned by his father in 1962 but never constructed due to political opposition in Stockholm, and creating a library designed by Thomas Schütte in a Swedish forest. He explains his daily practice of rewriting handwritten notes as a mnemonic device, why physical movement matters, and offers powerful advice: be curious and act on that curiosity without hesitation, even when asking provocative questions to Nobel Prize winners or major artists.

Staffan Ahrenberg: Swedish art collector, entrepreneur and film producer, Staffan Ahrenberg is the owner and publisher of Cahiers d’Art, the historic Parisian publishing house and gallery he relaunched in 2012. He has revitalised its revered revue, book and limited‑edition programmes, and co‑founded the nonprofit Cahiers d’Art Institute to publish catalogues raisonnés for leading 20th‑ and 21st‑century artists.

Katy Wellesley Wesley: With over 18 years of leadership across galleries, foundations, and startups, Katy has built a career shaped by curiosity and a drive to explore new ideas. She spent a decade at leading commercial galleries—first at Gagosian, then at Pace, where she was Director of Exhibitions in London. She went on to lead the Villa Lena Foundation in Italy as Director, before joining the founding team of ROKBOX, a pioneering environmentally focused art logistics startup, as Sales Director. After relocating to Paris six years ago, Katy developed a strong interest in the intersection of art and luxury. To deepen this focus, she recently completed an Executive Master’s in Luxury Management and Design Innovation, a joint program between ESSEC Business School and Parsons School of Design. She now works as a consultant to brands, artists, foundations, and collectors. Among her clients is the legendary art publisher Cahiers d’Art, where she heads Commercial Partnerships.

Compelling is proudly in partnership with Cahiers d’Art.

Compelling is produced in collaboration with Cahiers d’Art, the iconic Paris-based art publisher founded in 1926, home of the Catalogue Raisonné of Picasso and most recently the Frank Gehry Drawings Catalogue Raisonné. At the heart of it's publishing program is the Cahiers d'Art Revue, one of the most significant and longest-standing annual art publications of the last century. In 2026, Cahiers d’Art will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a series of major publications, projects and exhibitions in collaboration with leading global institutions, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the MoMA in New York City and the Musée Picasso in Paris.

Visit Cahiers d’Art

Art direction by Eddie Harrop Studio
Website and Production by Story Ninety-Four
Filmed and recorded by Marque Page Studio

What role should books and digital experiences play in the future of art institutions?

In this bonus episode of Compelling, host Katy Wellesley Wesley sits down with Daniel Birnbaum, director of Acute Art and former director of Moderna Museet, for a quick-fire conversation about life, art and ambition. They explore the books and writers that shaped his thinking—particularly Italo Calvino—and discuss his dream of creating a digital home for major VR and AR artworks commissioned with artists such as Mark Leckey, Cao Fei and Jeff Koons.

With immersive art experiences expanding globally, Daniel explains why the future will be a hybrid mixed-reality world where physical objects and digital tools coexist. He also addresses the risks of living in a post-truth era where fiction and reality merge in political spheres, and why artists have always navigated this terrain. Above all, he offers simple but powerful advice: do only what you find interesting, because if you don't find it compelling, nobody else will.

Daniel Birnbaum: Daniel Birnbaum is a writer and curator based in Paris and Stockholm. From 2000 to 2010 he was rector of the Städelschule in Frankfurt and director of its Portikus gallery. Between 2010 and 2018 he was director of Moderna Museet in Stockholm. In 2009 he curated the the 53rd Venice Biennial. His most recent exhibition is Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint. Dreams of the Future at K20 in Düsseldorf (with Julia Voss) and Dream Machines at DESTE Foundation (with Massimiliano Gioni). Recent publications include Exhibition, Academy, Museum: Notes on the Frames of Art (Walther König, 2022) and the novel Dr B (Gallimard, 2022). In 2024 Birnbaum joined the Warburg Institute’s Visionary Circle.

Katy Wellesley Wesley: With over 18 years of leadership across galleries, foundations, and startups, Katy has built a career shaped by curiosity and a drive to explore new ideas. She spent a decade at leading commercial galleries—first at Gagosian, then at Pace, where she was Director of Exhibitions in London. She went on to lead the Villa Lena Foundation in Italy as Director, before joining the founding team of ROKBOX, a pioneering environmentally focused art logistics startup, as Sales Director. After relocating to Paris six years ago, Katy developed a strong interest in the intersection of art and luxury. To deepen this focus, she recently completed an Executive Master’s in Luxury Management and Design Innovation, a joint program between ESSEC Business School and Parsons School of Design. She now works as a consultant to brands, artists, foundations, and collectors. Among her clients is the legendary art publisher Cahiers d’Art, where she heads Commercial Partnerships.

Compelling is proudly in partnership with Cahiers d’Art.

Compelling is produced in collaboration with Cahiers d’Art, the iconic Paris-based art publisher founded in 1926, home of the Catalogue Raisonné of Picasso and most recently the Frank Gehry Drawings Catalogue Raisonné. At the heart of it's publishing program is the Cahiers d'Art Revue, one of the most significant and longest-standing annual art publications of the last century. In 2026, Cahiers d’Art will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a series of major publications, projects and exhibitions in collaboration with leading global institutions, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the MoMA in New York City and the Musée Picasso in Paris.

Visit Cahiers d’Art

Art direction by Eddie Harrop Studio
Website and Production by Story Ninety-Four
Filmed and recorded by Marque Page Studio

Happy holidays! Thank you for listening to Compelling.

I've really enjoyed the first six episodes and I hope you have too.

A huge thank you to my early guests on the podcast for their trust, time and inspiring conversations: Lena Evstafieva, Lee Shulman, Clemente Boisseau, Charlotte Bouygues, Staffan Arhenberg, Daniel Birnbaum, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Camille Miceli.

If you've enjoyed what you've heard, please do share, like and subscribe. I'm also really happy to hear thoughts, suggestions, or ways to improve so please get in touch with me at katy@thecompellingpodcast.com.

Additionally, you can find out all the latest news on the website and you can also find Compelling on Instagram at @TheCompellingPodcast and on LinkedIn.

Happy holidays, thank you very much, and I look forward to starting the conversation again in 2026.

What does it really take to reinvent an icon without erasing its history?

In this episode of Compelling, host Katy Wellesley Wesley speaks to Camille Miceli, Artistic Director at Pucci, about how she is reimagining one of Italy’s most recognisable maisons for new generations. From a childhood spent between fashion shoots with her stylist mother, to observing glamorous dinners that her parents hosted; to formative years at Chanel with Karl Lagerfeld and then Louis Vuitton with Marc Jacobs, Camille traces a career shaped by curiosity, mentorship and risk‑taking rather than rigid planning.

She explains why she insists Pucci’s prints be redrawn by hand, how she has reduced the calendar to two tightly edited collections a year, and why “Pucci imperfection is perfection” when it comes to human touch in design. With luxury fashion under increasing scrutiny for its environmental impact and overproduction, her choice to focus on made‑in‑Italy craftsmanship, small circuits and minimal waste offers a quietly mindful  model for sustainability at the top end of the market. This is a generous, candid conversation about joy, discipline and building a living archive that still feels irresistibly new.

“Yvan’s dinner” as mentioned by Camille and Katy as the place they had recently met, was at their mutual friend Yvan Benbanaste’s at Society Room - Yvan is a sensational designer of men and women’s wear - offering fully or semi-tailored clothes.  

• (00:00) - Welcome to Compelling
• (00:52) - Introducing Camille Miceli and Pucci
• (02:21) - Growing Up Between Fashion and Art
• (04:08) - First Internships and Lessons from Azzedine Alaïa
• (07:00) - Chanel, Press Offices and Learning the Business
• (13:01) - Moving to Louis Vuitton and Discovering Creative Direction
• (22:20) - Returning to the Pucci Archive
• (23:31) - Why Pucci Imperfection Is Perfection
• (26:00) - Rethinking Seasons, Waste and Sustainability
• (29:46) - Understanding the Pucci Client and Resort Life
• (37:09) - Building Collections Through Prints, Colour and Silhouette
• (38:53) - Community, Teamwork and Leadership at Pucci

Camille Miceli: After an internship with Alaïa at the end of her studies, Camille began her career in 1989 working in public relations at Chanel. In 1997, Camille joined Louis Vuitton as RIW Communication Director, and 2002, she became Fashion Jewelry Creative Director & Fine Jewelry Consultant. In 2009, she was appointed as Creative Director for Fashion Jewelry and Creative Consultant for Leather Goods at Christian Dior Couture. Since 2014, Camille has held the position of Accessories Creative Director at Louis Vuitton. In 2021 she joined as Artistic Director at PUCCI. "A new journey" is how Camille Miceli defines the House's new direction, focusing on a modern way of thinking, living, and moving - well beyond style. She reinvents an ultra-contemporary way of dressing in the spirit of the House.

Visit Pucci

Katy Wellesley Wesley: With over 18 years of leadership across galleries, foundations, and startups, Katy has built a career shaped by curiosity and a drive to explore new ideas. She spent a decade at leading commercial galleries—first at Gagosian, then at Pace, where she was Director of Exhibitions in London. She went on to lead the Villa Lena Foundation in Italy as Director, before joining the founding team of ROKBOX, a pioneering environmentally focused art logistics startup, as Sales Director. After relocating to Paris six years ago, Katy developed a strong interest in the intersection of art and luxury. To deepen this focus, she recently completed an Executive Master’s in Luxury Management and Design Innovation, a joint program between ESSEC Business School and Parsons School of Design. She now works as a consultant to brands, artists, foundations, and collectors. Among her clients is the legendary art publisher Cahiers d’Art, where she heads Commercial Partnerships.

Compelling is proudly in partnership with Cahiers d’Art.

Compelling is produced in collaboration with Cahiers d’Art, the iconic Paris-based art publisher founded in 1926, home of the Catalogue Raisonné of Picasso and most recently the Frank Gehry Drawings Catalogue Raisonné. At the heart of it's publishing program is the Cahiers d'Art Revue, one of the most significant and longest-standing annual art publications of the last century. In 2026, Cahiers d’Art will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a series of major publications, projects and exhibitions in collaboration with leading global institutions, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the MoMA in New York City and the Musée Picasso in Paris.

Visit Cahiers d’Art

Art direction by Eddie Harrop Studio
Website and Production by Story Ninety-Four

What does it mean to keep an art institution alive for a hundred years – and why do books still matter in a digital age?

In this episode of Compelling, host Katy Wellesley Wesley sits down at Cahiers d’Art in Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés with publisher Staffan Ahrenberg, curator Daniel Birnbaum and Serpentine artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist. Together they trace their personal journeys into art, from teenage encounters with Giacometti and jazz to families steeped in museums and collecting.

The conversation centres on the rebirth and centenary of Cahiers d’Art, exploring how the revue links Picasso, Duchamp and Goya to contemporary artists such as Gabriel Orozco, Arthur Jafa and Rosemarie Trockel. They discuss the idea of a “living archive”, connecting past to present through the eyes of artists, the role of catalogues raisonnés and the tension between physical books and new mixed‑reality experiences, echoing current experiments with VR and immersive exhibitions in leading institutions. Throughout, they argue that the future of art will be built from ‘fragments of the past’, constantly reactivated by new artists, new media and new readers.

• (00:00) - Welcome to Compelling
• (01:25) - Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Childhood Encounters with Art and Books
• (06:54) - Daniel Birnbaum’s Path from Philosophy to Criticism and Curation
• (15:29) - Staffan Ahrenberg’s Family Collection and Discovery of Cahiers d’Art
• (24:30) - Reviving a Legendary Publishing House
• (33:41) - Preparing the Cahiers d’Art Centennial
• (39:15) - Polaroid Cameras, Objects and New Artist Commissions
• (43:49) - Why Art Books Endure in an Instagram world
• (49:35) - VR, Mixed Reality and Re‑Framing Exhibitions
• (51:07) - Memory and Connecting Past and Present
• (56:26) - The Future for Art

Staffan Ahrenberg: Swedish art collector, entrepreneur and film producer, Staffan Ahrenberg is the owner and publisher of Cahiers d’Art, the historic Parisian publishing house and gallery he relaunched in 2012. He has revitalised its revered revue, book and limited‑edition programmes, and co‑founded the nonprofit Cahiers d’Art Institute to publish catalogues raisonnés for leading 20th‑ and 21st‑century artists.

Daniel Birnbaum: Daniel Birnbaum is a writer and curator based in Paris and Stockholm. From 2000 to 2010 he was rector of the Städelschule in Frankfurt and director of its Portikus gallery. Between 2010 and 2018 he was director of Moderna Museet in Stockholm. In 2009 he curated the the 53rd Venice Biennial. His most recent exhibition is Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint. Dreams of the Future at K20 in Düsseldorf (with Julia Voss) and Dream Machines at DESTE Foundation (with Massimiliano Gioni). Recent publications include Exhibition, Academy, Museum: Notes on the Frames of Art (Walther König, 2022) and the novel Dr B (Gallimard, 2022). In 2024 Birnbaum joined the Warburg Institute’s Visionary Circle. 

Hans Ulrich Obrist: Hans Ulrich Obrist is Artistic Director of Serpentine in London, and Senior Advisor at LUMA Arles. Prior to this, he was the Curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show ‘World Soup (The Kitchen Show)’ in 1991, he has curated more than 350 exhibitions. In 2011 Obrist received the CCS Bard Award for Curatorial Excellence, in 2015 he was awarded the International Folkwang Prize, and in 2025  he received the Prix François Morellet. Obrist’s recent publications include 140 Ideas for Planet Earth (2021), Edouard Glissant: Archipelago (2021), James Lovelock: Ever Gaia (2023), Remember to Dream (2023), Worldbuilding: Gaming and Art in The Digital Age (2024) and A Life In Progress (2025). 

Katy Wellesley Wesley: With over 18 years of leadership across galleries, foundations, and startups, Katy has built a career shaped by curiosity and a drive to explore new ideas. She spent a decade at leading commercial galleries—first at Gagosian, then at Pace, where she was Director of Exhibitions in London. She went on to lead the Villa Lena Foundation in Italy as Director, before joining the founding team of ROKBOX, a pioneering environmentally focused art logistics startup, as Sales Director. After relocating to Paris six years ago, Katy developed a strong interest in the intersection of art and luxury. To deepen this focus, she recently completed an Executive Master’s in Luxury Management and Design Innovation, a joint program between ESSEC Business School and Parsons School of Design. She now works as a consultant to brands, artists, foundations, and collectors. Among her clients is the legendary art publisher Cahiers d’Art, where she heads Commercial Partnerships.

Compelling is proudly in partnership with Cahiers d’Art.

Compelling is produced in collaboration with Cahiers d’Art, the iconic Paris-based art publisher founded in 1926, home of the Catalogue Raisonné of Picasso and most recently the Frank Gehry Drawings Catalogue Raisonné. At the heart of it's publishing program is the Cahiers d'Art Revue, one of the most significant and longest-standing annual art publications of the last century. In 2026, Cahiers d’Art will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a series of major publications, projects and exhibitions in collaboration with leading global institutions, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the MoMA in New York City and the Musée Picasso in Paris.

Visit Cahiers d’Art

Art direction by Eddie Harrop Studio
Website and Production by Story Ninety-Four
Filmed and recorded by Marque Page Studio