ROME — The imposing stainless steel “Balloon Venus Lespugue” by Jeff Koons coated in bright red standing at the entrance of the Fondazione Valentino Garavani e Giancarlo Giammetti sets the tone for the first exhibition being staged at PM23, the new home of the foundation.

While it may not be surprising that the exhibition “Orizzonti/Rosso [Horizons/Red]” hinges on the color closely associated with the couturier’s designs over five decades, the display and range of the 30 art masterpieces in the collection venue are absolutely striking.

“We wanted to have the best, the most important artworks possible, the ones I would love to have at home,” Giammetti, who is actually a keen collector of fine art with Garavani, said during an interview ahead of the official inauguration of the exhibition, scheduled for Sunday. Indeed, he said three of the art pieces were from their personal collection, while shy about naming which.

“This is the beginning of a new moment in our lives,” said Giammetti, adding that, a day earlier, Garavani, who turned 90 in 2022 and is now leading a private life, had toured the exhibition and was “deeply moved by the end result.”

“I love beauty, it’s not my fault,” Garavani famously said when filmed for the Matt Tyrnauer 2008 documentary on his life, “The Last Emperor,” and the phrase is now spelled out on a tall stainless steel and wood work by the sculptor Joseph next to Koons’ “Venus.”

“’Beauty creates beauty’ is the guiding principle of the Fondazione, it’s at the center of it all, as inspiration and progress,” Giammetti said. “Our life was inspired by beauty and we want to give back and create even more beauty.”

PM23 is named after the address of Palazzo Gabrielli Mignanelli in Piazza Mignanelli 23, next to the storied Valentino headquarters in Rome. The building is a late Renaissance palace erected around 1575 near the city’s landmark Spanish Steps. The Valentino fashion house is a separate entity and business from the foundation, but Giammetti said that garments from the Valentino archive, which remains the property of the couture house, were part of the exhibition.

The foundation was established in 2016 as an entity with a philanthropic mission, and after one year of conservative restoration works as a multidisciplinary space covering 10,800 square feet, PM23 is the “beating heart of the cultural activities of the Fondazione,” Giammetti said. It is committed to three key pillars: the support of social and philanthropic initiatives; enhancing the arts and culture, and talent education and backing.

Asked about his passion for art, Giammetti said his first purchase as a young man was a canvas by Lucio Fontana — one of his signature cuts in white. Also, “I knew Pablo Picasso’s tailor in Milan, who was paid in paintings so I bought two back then,” he recalled with a smile.

Later, he and Garavani became friends with Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. A painting of the designer by Warhol is part of the exhibition, as are two large-scale works by the latter, “Untitled” (1982) and “In This Case” (1983) representing the peak of his artistic output, where a linear crepe couture gown from the fall 2002 season is juxtaposed with “the euphoria of the paintings. We did not want to display only fashion, that kind of exhibitions remind me of Madame Tussaud, they must be more alive,” said Giammetti.

Indeed, Giammetti revealed that he would like to stage an exhibition revolving around the friendship with Warhol and Basquiat. He shared some memories, including how he put Warhol in touch with Franco Rossellini to play the titular role in the 1974 film “The Driver’s Seat,” with Elizabeth Taylor. An exhibition of cinematography is also on his list.

“Our goal is to hold one or two exhibitions per year and dedicate some months to workshops and contests to help young talents find their voice and provide them with scholarships,” Giammetti said. To this end, he said he was working with Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos “for one of the educational exhibits on fabrics and embroideries.”

For the inaugural exhibition, the curators are Pamela Golbin, previously head curator of the Department of Fashion and Textiles of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and Anna Coliva, previously director of Galleria Borghese, respectively in charge of fashion and art.

“Red is known as the archetypal color, the first one humans learned to create and reproduce, initially in painting and later in dyeing, so it is a very powerful color for many reasons. But in this exhibition, it’s not about creating dialogues or conversations with art, it’s about exploring art and fashion through the color red, which really symbolizes Mr. Valentino’s legacy,” said Golbin.

She pointed out that “it’s extraordinary that there is a connection that’s created anyway, because the design element of Mr. Valentino was always the same — beauty creates beauty, which is at the heart of the foundation. And so this definition of beauty is such a personal and intimate one, and it actually all comes together.”

Golbin enthused about the conversations with Giammetti “because he is someone who’s so extremely knowledgeable. The aesthetic factor is extremely important to him and he’s always very open to hearing other points of view because it enriches him and, since for me this is about Mr. Valentino and Mr. Giammetti, it was extremely important for their point of view to be present in every stage of the process. It’s really a tribute to both of them, it was an exceptional process.”

The exhibition explores five horizons — the definition of beauty, identity, emotional landscapes, surface treatment, and the connection to dreams, and “we’ve gathered paintings that explore each of these themes.”

Golbin said she was allowed freedom to select the garments, which total 50, so that they would not be extraneous to what surrounds them in terms of dates or silhouettes.

In one room stands the first red dress designed by Garavani, the hourglass-shaped cocktail dress “Fiesta” dating back to 1959, together with his last, from the couture spring 2008, surrounded by works where red is reimagined in numerous abstract variations, pierced or slashed by Fontana; squeegeed by Gerhard Richter; burnt by Alberto Burri;  stained by Helen Frankenthaler;  troweled by Clyfford Still, and layered by Mark Rothko. A standout is also the 1932 “Le Repos,” Pablo Picasso’s portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter,  the only figurative painting here.

All of the dresses are seen 360-degrees, “like a sculpture. You can walk around, and this is something that I’ve always wanted to do, as it creates such an intimacy in this space that I think people not only will be respectful, but will be blown away by this intimacy,” said Golbin.

The mannequins, modeled after Natalia Vodianova, allow visitors to explore the work Garavani did on the specific parts of the body — such as the neck, shoulders, arms, or back, reinventing necklines in ever-evolving variations.

She underscored the timelessness of the designs. “You can’t tell which dress dates from what period. And what’s so interesting about Mr. Valentino’s work is that he has a red body of work that he started in 1959 and consistently designed through to 2008.”

“Red not only makes a woman feel sensational, but also she looks sensational. Because in the end, it was always about the woman. That’s what interested Mr. Valentino. It was how to design for the woman to feel fabulous. It wasn’t about the trends. And what’s incredible is that his stylistic vocabulary was almost already structured in 1959 when he came back from Paris,” said Golbin, referring to Garavani’s experiences with Jean Dessès among others.

Garavani’s signature style emerges through the visit, she continued, and at a time “when fashion is really more of a marketing strategy, when you see what beauty, elegance and timelessness bring together, it really is a lesson that is necessary today to rewrite what the standard is,” said Golbin.

Other artistic masterpieces include, for example: Francis Bacon’s “Sand Dune” (1983) and Marlene Dumas’ “The Red Room” (1994); Warhol’s use of bold red and layered techniques  in  his “Self-Portrait” (1966–1967); Cy Twombly’s “Untitled” (2007); Damien Hirst’s “She Loves You” (1997), and a specially commissioned, site-specific large-scale work by Franco-Canadian artist Thomas Paquet that envelops and frames a beautiful selection of Valentino gowns.

Some of the works were lent by private collectors, others from the Fondation Louis Vuitton or the Fondation Beyeler, to name a few.

Asked for a comment on the current fashion industry, Giammetti said he wished to see more fashion designers develop their own namesake brands, praising, for example, Simon Porte Jacquemus — “a friend I admire” — and Giambattista Valli and lamented a certain “discontinuity with the codes of established brands,” as the revolving doors of creative directors continues. “Also, I wish that measure and balance be brought to the brands; Valentino always knew when to stop.”

A cocktail will be held on Friday to mark the opening of the exhibition, followed on Saturday by another cocktail and dinner, and the first 10 days after the inauguration, the exhibition will be open to the public for free.