{"id":999,"date":"2026-07-20T12:09:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T12:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=999"},"modified":"2026-07-20T12:09:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T12:09:26","slug":"il-paradiso-italiano-di-julian-schnabel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=999","title":{"rendered":"Il Paradiso Italiano di Julian Schnabel"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Julian Schnabel took his first trip to Italy fifty years ago. \u201cWhen I was in college, I was looking at these art-history books, and I thought, You can\u2019t tell a damn thing about these things unless you go there and stand in front of them,\u201d he said recently. So, he went there and stood in front of them: Giotto\u2019s frescoes in the Cappella degli Scrovegni, Piero della Francesca\u2019s paintings in Arezzo, some Duccio, some Caravaggio. He liked the art, and he liked the Italians. \u201cIn the United States, everybody knows Abraham Lincoln,\u201d he said. \u201cIn Italy, everybody knows Caravaggio.\u201d He stayed. He sold some paintings. That was 1976. Italy has often been on his mind. This year, Netflix released his film \u201cIn the Hand of Dante\u201d (as in Alighieri), and Pace is hosting an exhibition of his paintings of Italy\u2019s umbrella-pine trees.<\/p>\n

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Schnabel was in his studio inside Palazzo Chupi, his pink Venetian-style building in the West Village. He wore slippers and paint-splattered coveralls, unbuttoned, with chest hair poofing out. A work crew was about to pack up his paintings to send to the gallery. \u201cWant to start with this one?\u201d a worker asked.<\/p>\n

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\u201cNo, I\u2019m standing here because I want to start with that one,\u201d Schnabel said. Of the paintings, he said, \u201cI was living in Rome, near the Villa Borghese, and they\u2019ve got these trees there. I was down in Sicily, shooting in Trapani and San Vito Lo Capo. We shot in Tarquinia. We shot in Bracciano, Venice, Verona, Padua. The whole thing is called \u2018Italy Through Its Trees.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019d painted on broken plates or on old maps. He pointed to a plate painting on the floor. \u201cI painted this in my outdoor studio in Montauk,\u201d he said. \u201cI painted flat, which is unusual. For example\u2014Michael, give me a brush on a stick.\u201d Michael, an assistant, gave him a brush on a stick. \u201cYou see those round marks? That\u2019s me going like this.\u201d He jabbed, as a janitor with a broom might jab at a drunk. The color of the sky through the branches was remarkable.<\/p>\n

As the workers packed, Schnabel reviewed photographs from a newly opened exhibition. Another assistant handed him the catalogue, balling up its plastic wrapping stamped with promotional copy. \u201cYou just scrunch that up?\u201d Schnabel said. \u201cGive that to me, please.\u201d He unscrunched and read, \u201c\u00a0\u2018Julian Schnabel has been exploring ways of painting for the last five decades. From his initial wax paintings and plate paintings to his most recent works, he\u2019s contributed to the shaping of the ever-open vocabulary of mark making.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u2019\u00a0\u201d He concluded and said, \u201cAnyway, it\u2019s a pity to throw that away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schnabel wanted lunch, so he headed upstairs to his apartment. Palazzo Chupi has twelve stories and a pool. Schnabel constructed it, atop an old perfume factory, in 2007. To help finance it, he sold a Picasso. Being pink, tall, and a palazzo (a critic described it as an \u201cexploded Malibu Barbie house\u201d), it was controversial. Schnabel sold some units\u2014Richard Gere bought one\u2014and kept some. He gave a tour on the way up. In a bedroom: \u201cMy first plate painting, from 1978.\u201d In a room with two grand pianos, a Pilates machine, and a taxidermied bear: \u201cAndy Warhol painting of me.\u201d In a foyer with a sculpture: \u201cSculpture.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In the kitchen, Schnabel sat in a big wooden chair with cherubs carved into the arms. He ate a tuna-fish sandwich with oat milk. \u201cI learned Italian watching Italian movies,\u201d he explained. \u201c\u00a0\u2018L\u2019Ultima Donna,\u2019 by Marco Ferreri, where G\u00e9rard Depardieu cuts his dick off with an electric knife. I saw Bertolucci\u2019s \u2018Atto Due,\u2019 the second part of \u2018Novecento,\u2019 in Paris, in Italian, with French subtitles. I didn\u2019t speak French or Italian. I became very good friends with Bernardo Bertolucci over the years. When I met Bernardo, I hummed the soundtrack of \u2018Novecento\u2019 to him, and he just melted.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Schnabel\u2019s son Vito (as in Corleone) was a producer of \u201cIn the Hand of Dante,\u201d and Martin Scorsese was an executive producer. Its stars include Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, Sabrina Impacciatore, Jason Momoa, and John Malkovich. It\u2019s two and a half hours long and intersperses black-and-white. \u201cPeople invested in the film wanted me to make it two hours, in color. But Marty loved it, the actors loved it,\u201d Schnabel continued. \u201cWhat did they think, I\u2019m making a fucking Marvel movie?\u201d<\/p>\n

Scorsese appears in the film as a mystical Jew. Al Pacino has a part, too. \u201cI met Al through Diane Keaton,\u201d Schnabel said. \u201cDiane said to me, \u2018Whatever you do, don\u2019t do your Tony Montana routine.\u2019\u00a0\u201d He did his Tony Montana routine. \u201cAl just said, \u2018O.K., we\u2019re friends forever.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

Several actors play multiple parts. Butler plays a hit man and the Pope. \u201cI sent him the script, and he wrote me back a text that was pretty spectacular,\u201d Schnabel said. He pulled out his phone and recited a long text. It concluded, \u201cWhat is life all about, through all the hardships and roughness, what is it all about? What\u2019s its saving grace? This is all examined so profoundly here and yet done with a mix of \u2018Goodfellas,\u2019 \u2018Paradise Lost,\u2019 and \u2018Love Story.\u2019 No matter what happens with me and doing this role, you\u2019ve created a masterpiece.\u201d Schnabel rubbed the cherub heads. \u201cWhen I got that, I wrote, \u2018Beautifully written message. I think we can collaborate.\u2019\u00a0\u201d\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n

Read more The Divine Red-Carpet Looks of \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d Press Tour<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At his pink palazzo, in the West Village, the artist packs up paintings for a Pace exhibit and discusses his new movie, about Dante\u2014produced by, and guest-starring, Martin Scorsese. Zach Helfand reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-pictures"],"yoast_head":"\nIl Paradiso Italiano di Julian Schnabel - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=999\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Il Paradiso Italiano di Julian Schnabel - City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At his pink palazzo, in the West Village, the artist packs up paintings for a Pace exhibit and discusses his new movie, about Dante\u2014produced by, and guest-starring, Martin Scorsese. 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