Whitewall Talks: Swizz Beatz, Daniel Arsham, and Simon de Pury on Instagram & Patrizia Moroso in Conversation with Patricia Urquiola

The first took place on Thursday in the Penthouse of the new Faena Hotel. Moderated by Whitewall‘s Editor in Chief Katy Donoghue, we asked Arsham (@DanielArsham), Beatz (@TheRealSwizzz), and de Pury (@SimondePury) about how Instagram has changed and influenced the art world—as an artist, collector, and curator/auctioneer.

To start the discussion, panelists shared how they started using the application. Beatz credited his son as pushing him into this visual social media frenzy. Arsham said, “A friend of mine—another artist KAWS—was actually at my wedding, and there was a photo that someone texted me, and he said, ‘Oh, if you were on Instagram, you would’ve seen that already cause I posted it two days ago.’” Pury, on the other hand, says he was introduced by two friends. “One, is Jean Pigozzi, who, if you don’t know, and you can go on his Instagram feed, and you will know everything about kale,” he said. “And the other friend is Hans Ulrich Obrist, who of course, is an uber curator who is passionate about so many things, and he said, ‘Listen, you’ve got to get into Instagram’ and I did. And as you rightly say, it’s addictive, and I’m totally addicted. And I haven’t gotten over it yet.”

The trio spoke on behalf of Instagram’s accessible platform, its recent video additions, and the future of it all, which Beatz affirms is already here, by stating, “We are already living in the future.”

The following day, Friday, Whitewall contributing writer Eliza Jordan moderated a conversation between longtime friends and collaborators Patrizia Moroso and designer Patricia Urquiola at the Miami Botanical Garden (featuring furniture pieces from Moroso’s “M’Afrique” collection). In discussion, Moroso and Urquiola reviewed their first meeting in 1998, how their professional and personal relationship progressed, their many global travels, the physical use of contemporary design, and how often the need for architecture propelled design, and vice-versa.