The Florentine-born, Milan-based Selva Barni created Fantom in 2009, a trimestral art magazine dedicated to the “uses and abuses of photography”, full of thematic and intriguing investigations into the art form. The mother of one is part of the creative team that recently opened the Viasaterna gallery inside a 19th century apartment building in Milan, where she curates the cutting edge photography selection.
My mother is an incredibly elegant woman and she taught me all about style. She had a beautiful Armani coat that she loved to wear, and I loved to see her in it.
I love menswear. I wear men’s pants and I sleep in men’s pajamas. My Armani men’s pajamas (shown here) are the height of class, for bed or for wearing out and about.
Lightning strike can strike when you least expect it. When I was living in New York, I met a man named Massimo on the street, and he immediately told me he wanted to marry me. Five months later, he did. We’ve been together for twelve years now.
When you’re a mother, your perspective changes. To dedicate time to your child, you end up stressing out much less about things you used to put a lot of energy into. You work better in a shorter amount of time. Your priorities are different, and much clearer.
To disconnect from work is very difficult, especially since my husband’s also in the art world and we do some projects together. Even a vacation is never a pure vacation. In some way, you’re always doing some kind of research, but I’m very fortunate; I do what I love.
Being a mother is the funnest thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s a lot of work of course, but it’s the most interesting thing in the world to see a child grow.
I grew up in the art world since my father is an artist, so it was natural that I would have a passion for art. The more I know of the world at large, the more I realize how lucky I am to have grown up in an artistic environment.
The only things that count in a creative environment are a person’s ideas. I’ve always been surrounded by people with a lot of talent, and you like a person or your don’t– money and status don’t matter.
-Laura Rysman
