TRIBUTE TO ROBERT WILSON - TALK
The Carla Fendi Foundation paid tribute to Robert Wilson with an event that evoked memories connected to Spoleto and the history of the Festival dei Due Mondi, where he was once again due to participate with two projects, one of which to be produced by the Foundation, cementing a deep bond and friendship. Having first arrived in Spoleto in 1974 at the invitation of Giancarlo Menotti and returned as a protagonist for a decade with unforgettable productions, Wilson left an indelible mark, cementing a deep bond and friendship first with Carla Fendi and then with Maria Teresa Venturini Fendi, with whom he also shared an interest in the connections between art and science.
The Watermill Center's new artistic director, Charles Chemin, and actress Isabella Rossellini celebrated Robert Wilson's artistic legacy during this talk, which was guided by Antonio Monda, writer and professor at New York University.
from left to right: Charles Chemin, Artistic Director of the Watermill Center, Antonio Monda, writer and professor at the New York University, and Isabella Rossellini, actress
1. HAVE YOU BEEN HERE BEFORE 2. NO THIS IS THE FIRST TIME. This was the title Robert Wilson had chosen for an event to be staged with the contribution of The Carla Fendi Foundation—his very first lecture/performance at CERN, the world's largest research center on particle physics.
In Wilson's work, science has frequently been connected to major environmental installations or to the link between mathematics and music. His lecture, which was to be held in the auditorium of Renzo Piano's new Science Gateway (an innovative scientific outreach hub also built with the Foundation's support), would have focused on these themes. The Foundation whished to commemorate this event, something the artist deeply cared about, that could not be realized due to his unexpected passing. To fill the void left behind are his works and the legacy of The Watermill Center -- the laboratory for the arts and humanities he founded in 1992 -- which was received the Carla Fendi STEAM 2026 Award.
THE WATERMILL CENTER
Thanks to Charles Chemin's contribution, the event was enriched with video testimonies featuring fragments of some of Wilson's most memorable productions for the Festival, as well as rare archival images of the artist at The Watermill Center. The French-American director and playwright—first Wilson's protégé, and later co-director of over twenty of his productions, designated by him as his successor as Artistic Director of The Watermill Center—shared various little-known anecdotes, developed through an almost father-son relationship that tied him to Wilson for forty-two years, thirty-two of professional collaboration that one could say began in early childhood. «Wilson would bark on the phone» Chemin recounted jokingly, «calling my parents when I couldn't even speak yet, and I would bark back. This non-verbal communication was pure playfulness and an escape from rationality.» A game that became a common practice in their way of interacting, working, and communicating even through a glance or silence—a deeply meaningful approach that Wilson frequently used with his collaborators, and which Chemin experienced first as a very young actor on stage, then as a directing assistant, and finally as co-director of the artist's works, which he continues to stage in theatres worldwide.
Isabella Rossellini — a friend, supporter, and frequent artistic partner of Wilson, with whom she shared an unconventional approach to art and theatre — recalled their first meeting. «My first impression of Bob was 'What a handsome man!' Then I was taken back by his kindness. A perfect gentleman. He was so appreciable that I dared say, 'I don't understand your play.' He replied, 'Me neither. If I were to understand it, why do it?' And with one sentence, he freed me from the constraint of rationality, logic, and narrative.» The actress — who, among other things, starred in one of the VOOM video portraits that Wilson brought to a past edition of the Spoleto Festival — recalled her participation, shortly before the artist's passing, in the Summer Festival organized annually by The Watermill Center.
As Maria Teresa Venturini Fendi remarked while reflecting on the event and recalling past conversations with Wilson, his artistic universe consisted of avant-garde visions that were totally free, yet meticulously defined: «He always started from an image, mental or real: a sketch of his would synthesize very complex thoughts and unexpected connections with mathematics and science. Once, on the paper tablecloth of a bistro, he outlined in just a few strokes the mathematical scheme of how he had conceived Einstein on the Beach. His rigorous yet completely unconstrained creative process was an integral part of his works, and it was wonderful to be able to remember it.»
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