LAVAZZA 2025 *by Omar Victor Diop

LAVAZZA 2025 Calendar
*Celebrating 130 Years of Blending

written Alban E. Smajli

The Lavazza 2025 calendar is a living work. Its pages carry a rhythm, shaped by 130 years of blending.

It moves through color, energy, and form, holding stories that stretch across time. Omar Victor Diop creates four acts, each unfolding with precision and intention. The frames capture motion, moments, and layers that reflect connection.

Blending Cultures begins in winter. Blues fill the space, drawing focus to Whoopi Goldberg. Her presence forms the axis, surrounded by gestures and movements that echo outward. The frame holds lives, histories, and expressions, each one adding weight to the composition. Spring emerges in Blending Times. Jannik Sinner steps forward, his energy defining the tone. Arne Anker stands within the frame, his stance precise, his presence calm. Props and textures align with the figures, extending the narrative into the space they occupy. The image holds movement, grounded in craft and care.

(c) Omar Victor Diop
LAVAZZA Calendar 2025, February

“A day, a week, a month, a year – for me, it’s always Lavazza!”

Whoopi Goldberg

Summer shifts into Blending Roots. Omar Victor Diop steps into the frame, central to the story. The tones deepen into green, reflecting origins and connections. The composition expands, pulling threads of identity and place into focus.

Autumn closes with Blending Minds. Julia Nordhaus enters the frame, her energy focused and deliberate. Ochre tones fill the space, creating a sense of thought and creation. The composition feels open, inviting reflection and engagement. Every detail contributes to the narrative, holding its place within the whole.

The calendar moves through these acts, carrying the philosophy of blending into its imagery. The bar counter repeats across frames, forming a thread of exchange and connection. Props, shadows, and textures create depth, adding layers to the story. The energy of blending continues in every element, carrying the vision forward.

Blending began in 1895. Luigi Lavazza worked among sacks of coffee beans, each carrying whispers of the land it came from. Aromas clashed, mixed, and settled into something unified. The act grew into an idea, shaping how Lavazza created and connected with the world. Every blend carried stories, people, and places.

“The end result is much more than the sum of individual parts: the result is the Lavazza Group, a family of over 5,500 people, celebrating its 130th anniversary—a long, pioneering journey oriented toward responsibility for people and the environment.”

Francesca Lavazza
Member of the Board of the Lavazza Group

The 2025 calendar transforms this philosophy into visual form. Omar Victor Diop’s lens captures blending as an act of energy, movement, and stillness. Each tableau unfolds with precision, drawing the viewer into its layers. Blending Cultures reveals the winter blues. Whoopi Goldberg holds the center. Around her, figures interact, each one carrying its own weight within the scene. The composition speaks to exchange and the coexistence of traditions.

Spring emerges in Blending Times. Tennis-star Jannik Sinner and Arne Anker take the lead. Sinner brings a sense of vitality, while Anker reflects the artistry of craft. The rhythm of the scene resonates through objects and gestures. Blending Roots shifts into green, where Diop steps into the frame. His stance anchors the image in the concept of shared origins.

In Blending Minds, Julia Nordhaus of Lavazza Germany becomes the focal point. The ochre tones of autumn surround her, carrying the energy of collaboration and the pursuit of ideas. Her gaze suggests a vision forward, rooted in creativity and innovation.

Blending defines each frame. It appears in the arrangement of subjects, in the textures, and in the spaces where people and objects converge. The recurring bar counter emphasizes gathering and exchange, while the costumes and props bring layers of context and meaning into focus. Every element contributes to the overall narrative.

read more: Let´s Blend! Calender 2025!

(c) Omar Victor Diop
LAVAZZA Calendar 2025, August

(c) Omar Victor Diop
Artist portrait

“I depicted the concept of blend through the use of color—universal yet deeply personal. My intent was to create a multifaceted fresco that united identities, origins, and skills in a unique symposium.”

Omar Victor Diop

scroll the calendar

Arne Anker brought his perspective as Lavazza’s Ambassador of Indulgence for Germany. His Berlin restaurant, BRIKZ, reflects the blending ethos through its evolving menu. Coffeetails, a centerpiece of his work, reimagine coffee as a living ingredient, constantly adapted to new contexts.

Anker’s approach embodies the spirit of blending, creating moments that move beyond the static and into the experiential. Francesca Lavazza spoke of the calendar as a reflection of shared values. Her words grounded the project in the brand’s ongoing mission to connect people and ideas. Julia Nordhaus, whose presence in Blending Minds highlights Lavazza’s commitment to forward-thinking innovation, underscored the importance of collaboration within and beyond the company.

The 2025 calendar extends Lavazza’s heritage into new dimensions, transforms blending into a framework for thinking, one that bridges art, culture, and identity. Its unveiling in Vienna emphasized this movement, reinforcing Lavazza’s role as a catalyst for connection and creativity. The project shows how blending, born in coffee, continues to shape the way the brand engages with the world.

A Brewed Vision shared with Lavazza

(c) Omar Victor Diop for LAVAZZA
2024

Gregory Crewdson at Espace Louis Vuitton Munich, Cathedral of the Pines

Gregory Crewdson at Espace Louis Vuitton
*Dreamscapes of a Haunted America

written Monica de Luna

Gregory Crewdson’s photographs are a punch to the gut, and the latest exhibit at Espace Louis Vuitton München doesn’t hold back.

As part of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s bold Hors-les-murs program, Crewdson’s series Dream House (2002) and Cathedral of the Pines (2014) are unleashed upon the Munich audience, exposing the fractures beneath the pristine surface of middle-class America. The exhibition pulls you into a world where the familiar dissolves into the surreal, where dreams blur into nightmares, and where small-town life becomes a stage for unsettling cinematic narratives.

(c) Gregory Crewdson, Cathedral of the Pines
at Espace Louis Vuitton Munich

(c) Gregory Crewdson, Cathedral of the Pines
at Espace Louis Vuitton Munich

Crewdson doesn’t just photograph—he directs. His large-scale works, meticulously staged like movie stills, turn ordinary scenes into eerie tableaus. The deserted streets, the muted lighting, the frozen moments—they all draw from the visual lexicon of film noir and psychological thrillers, leaving you hanging in the quiet dread of what might come next. The characters are caught in the eye of a storm you can’t see, their stillness heavy with a tension that won’t break.

This latest showcase at Espace Louis Vuitton Munich goes deeper into that dissonance. Dream House is a series that pulls back the curtains on domestic spaces, revealing the lurking darkness that fills the cracks of suburban life. Crewdson’s use of twilight and nighttime settings floods each photograph with the same unease you get from waking up in a dream you can’t shake. Cathedral of the Pines, on the other hand, feels more intimate, more introspective. Shot in the forests of rural Massachusetts, these images are quieter, more meditative—yet no less haunting. You feel the weight of isolation, of lives lived on the fringes, of nature encroaching on the fragile constructs of human existence.

What sets Gregory Crewdson apart is the way he plays with time. In his world, nothing moves. There’s no before, no after—just the moment. This cinematic suspension freezes the characters and the viewer, locking you in an unresolved narrative. That sense of unsettling calm, of a story half-told, is why his work lingers long after you’ve left the gallery. Every photograph is a secret waiting to be uncovered, but Crewdson isn’t offering answers. He’s here for the mystery!

In Cathedral of the Pines, the mystery becomes more personal. The forested backdrop and the desolate interiors of small-town homes mirror Crewdson’s own journey—of dislocation, personal reflection, and a return to the woods of his youth. This series marks a shift, a softer but more emotionally charged tone that contrasts the colder precision of Dream House. Here, the silence is almost deafening, but it’s the kind that invites you to listen closely—to the rustling leaves, the creaking floorboards, and the whisper of unsaid thoughts.

(c) Gregory Crewdson, Dream House
at Espace Louis Vuitton Munich

There’s no escaping the comparison to David Lynch. Like Lynch, Crewdson captures the dark underbelly of the American dream. Both artists are fascinated with what lies beneath the surface of manicured lawns and polite smiles. In Crewdson’s world, the perfect façade is just that—a cover for something far more disturbing. It’s no accident that his images feel like stills from a movie that could sit comfortably between Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. The suburban dread, the unease in the everyday—Crewdson’s lens finds the uncanny in what most would overlook.

And yet, despite the cinematic scale of his work, there’s something deeply personal about Crewdson’s exploration of these themes. Whether through the stark portrayal of loneliness in Cathedral of the Pines or the visual claustrophobia of Dream House, there’s a sense that Crewdson is constantly searching for a way out—of both the frame and himself.

His images require you to stop, stare, and confront the unease that rises from the edges of the frame. They are moments from a story you’ll never fully understand, but one you won’t be able to forget.

(c) Gregory Crewdson
Espace Louis Vuitton Munich, 2024

(c) Gregory Crewdson, Dream House
at Espace Louis Vuitton Munich