In a rare and intimate interview with Elio Iannacci, visual artist Mauro Balletti reflects on his five-decade-plus collaboration with Mina—the iconic, reclusive Italian singer—whose image he helped reshape through boundary-pushing photography, collage, and cover art.
For half a century, celebrated visual artist Mauro Balletti has helped shape the identity of reclusive Italian music icon Mina—as both her artistic director and photographer. From her early album covers to the bold reinventions that followed her retreat from the stage and the public eye, Balletti has been her closest creative force. Although Mina’s last public performance took place in Tuscany on August 23, 1978, at the Bussoladomani Theatre, he has worked with her from 1973 to 2025, on 54 of her 76 studio albums. Together, they’ve built a partnership that has outlasted most marriages and produced a body of work that slices through the zeitgeist—redefining, repelling, and propelling Italy’s view of divas, femininity, and what it means for a woman to forge a persona on her own terms. Balletti continues to work with Mina on projects that stretch across mediums and moments—from crafting the striking visuals and videos for her 2024 chart-topping album Gassa d’amante to shaping the icon’s high-fashion collaboration with Balenciaga. His intersection with Mina remains unparalleled—constant, far-reaching, and always pushing boundaries.
I was invited to Balletti’s stunning home studio in Milan this past November, where walls were covered with hundreds of drawings, paintings, and sketches—many of Mina in different guises and eras. Together, over espressos, we went through canvases, computer screens, sketch pads, and scrap papers, talking about the iconic stories behind the just-as-iconic images. These weren’t just pop culture artifacts—they were visual records of a changing Italy, fragments of history told through a vision that challenged convention. Though Balletti would never admit it during our talk, his envelope-pushing visuals, alongside Mina’s worldview, helped catapult a country in a constant state of transition. We also revisited Balletti’s most pivotal and progressive projects projects—chronicled in books such as Mina nelle fotografie di Mauro Balletti (1990, Campanotto), Mina (2020, Mondadori Electa), and the just-published I protagonisti della musica italiana (2025, 24 Hours Culture). In conversation, it quickly became clear that Balletti’s work has not only defined Mina’s mythos—it has marked an entire generation, infiltrating and influencing culture in Italy and beyond, while pushing a new understanding of gender, sexuality, sensuality, and the boundaries of art.
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In your opinion, how has Mina’s voice transformed through the years?
Her voice always felt years ahead of her own age, but now, at 85, it feels more powerful in many ways. Yes, it’s still strong, but it has aged in greatness—that’s what makes it more beautiful. Her experience gives her tones a deeper meaning.
Do you two still talk regularly?
Yes. She lives in Lugano. I visit sometimes, but we’re both homebodies—she loves Switzerland, and I love Milano. We mostly use WhatsApp. She’s very fast when it comes to creating work—we’re both instinctive. It’s either “Yes, no, or bye,” and the job is done.
After 50 years, you must know each other well. Tell me about your first meeting.
I met her when I was 20—I’m more than 70 now. I was only painting then. I didn’t own a camera or know how to use one. I was obsessed with her songs, all of Italy was. Through a contact, I got into one of her rehearsals at Bussola, a beach club near Florence. When we met, she asked what I did and we started talking and she said, “Photograph me.” I told her I’d never taken a photo. She didn’t care. She liked my paintings and trusted me. She’s like a magician. She saw a future in me, and I saw one in her.
So this led to you creating her first iconic image, the cover of her album Frutta e Verdura?
Yes. Can you believe that was my first photo ever? I borrowed a friend’s Nikon. I didn’t even own a camera.
The image with the cigar—was that a Marlene Dietrich reference?
No. That was taken during a commercial she was shooting for Fortesoni, a soda drink like 7UP. She was on a break and just picked up a cigar. I snapped the photo quickly.
Cover of Mina’s 1973 album, Frutta e verdura (Photo: Mauro Balletti)
How do photography and painting differ for you?
I don’t separate them. It’s the same process in my mind. When Photoshop arrived in 1990, I was thrilled. Before that, I did everything by hand—cutting, painting, collage. Sometimes I work with Gianni Ronco, a great illustrator. He did the covers for Baby Gate and Caterpillar with me. What we did together was pure fantasy.
What was the typical process like then?
I’d sketch maybe ten concepts by hand. Mina would pick one. For Sorelle Lumière, I drew two film reels as a crown. Other album images came from conversations.
How did the two of you dream up the cover art for Mina’s album of 1981, Rane supreme?
We always talked about making Mina a man—it made sense to us. She was a powerful figure and wanted to play with what power meant—especially between men and women. A muscular man made sense because she was building her own career. Mina would do over twenty hairstyles and makeup looks in a single year. She was always changing, rehearsing, recording. It was like going to the gym for her. She’s like an Olympic athlete. I even drew her as a sumo wrestler.
How did you find Mina’s muscular male body double for Rane supreme?
I went to a gym two days before the shoot. I told someone, “I need a man—someone who looks like a sculpture. A meathead—but elegant.” Eventually, I found Federico Confalonieri. It was his first photoshoot. I photographed him in the morning and Mina in the afternoon. Then I printed, cut, glued the images—no measurements, all instinct. She loved it immediately.
You were both taking risks in a time that Italy was conservative. What was the feedback like for images like Mina in a beard for 1981’s album Salomè and for Rane supreme?
Yes, some parts of Italy were not as progressive as we would have liked, but we didn’t see Italy that way. Some people thought the bodybuilder image was scandalous or gay—but we didn’t care. We kept pushing and expressing. Everything we did was art, without technical help. No digital tools—just scissors and glue. A famous magazine ran a cover story calling it such a scandal. I remember walking past a record store with many copies of Rane Supreme covering the front window. I saw a family looking at the album and this little girl in the family told her mother that Mina was now a man. Her parents tried to explain that she wasn’t really a man, but the girl could not be convinced otherwise… she was energized by it—not afraid, just fascinated.
Your first book on your collaborations with Mina attracted another famous name.
Yes. One evening, my secretary got a call from Federico Zeri, one of Italy’s most important art critics. He only wrote about Caravaggio or Picasso—never photography or music. He asked me to call him at six in the morning. I thought it was a joke. But I called. He said, “Your book is incredible.” Then, “A dear friend of mine—she’s the biggest diva in the world—became obsessed with it.” I didn’t ask who. Twenty years later, I saw Zeri had been close friends with Greta Garbo. I found out that she was crazy about my work. I’m proud someone like Garbo appreciated it. I’m still very happy about that.
You’ve said you and Mina share a way of seeing the world, but I’m assuming there was pressure to get it right? You had to become her translator and mirror and help shape her image after she stepped away from the public eye.
It wasn’t hard for us. If anything, it was easier with less involved. We’re close. We see art, cinema, and new things in the same direction. Not the same mind—but the same vision.
Cover of Mina’s 1987 album, Rane supreme (Photo: Mauro Balletti)
Would you say you’re both feminists? Pro-LGBTQ?
Of course. But for us, it’s natural. We don’t think about making statements—it’s just how we are. We do, without overthinking. We always went against beauty standards. Not glamorous or normal. Not “pretty.” That’s not us. We don’t like conventional.
Did the images you made reflect your truth?
Yes. They’re real because we are real. No pretending, no “trying to be” anything. She created her own face—her own myth. I helped make the vision happen and added to it.
You once said this kind of collaboration—yours and Mina’s—is extremely rare. Why?
It doesn’t exist anymore. Fifty years of working together like this? I don’t see anything similar anywhere. I always look for new people or ideas, but I don’t find them. But I always find them in Mina.
Do you think she liberated you artistically?
She gives freedom to everyone she works with. It’s the first thing she says: “Freedom.” With musicians, too. Total liberty.
You photographed Raffaella Carrà as well. How different was that experience to your working relationship with Mina?
That was over 30 years ago. I remember going to Raffaella’s studio in Rome. Outside was a massive truck. They said it was all of [fashion designer] Luca Sabatelli’s costumes. The whole truck—full of clothes! After all that, I only liked photographing her at the end of the day, when she sat on the floor with not much around her. That’s when she was most real.
That process is so different from Mina’s process.
The opposite, actually. Mina always knows when the shot is done. We work fast. She’s like a perfect model. She understands when we have the image. With Carrà, we could’ve gone on for hours.
Both Carrà and Mina looked like they were inspired by drag. Do you think they were?
Drag was inspired by Mina—especially Italian drag. She influenced it through how she looked on TV and stage. Italian TV is full of kitsch—Raffaella Carrà, for example. I loved watching her shows to understand that kind of grand spectacle. She’s became a gay and drag idol in a different way. Like many great icons, Mina is drag. She had a photo of a bordello from the early 1900s. Three male friends—one owned a famous restaurant—dressed up as women to recreate that bordello photo for her Uiallalla album cover [released in 1989]. She sat with them, dressed as three women in the most natural way. For gender-fluid people or drag queens, Mina is important. Some people often thought her makeup was strange or extreme. But to us, it was normal. She was just ahead of her time. If you think about her clothing and makeup—Lady Gaga came 40 years later.
When it comes to the subjects you paint, who and what captures your attention the most?
Strange people. I don’t like conventionally pretty models—I like characters. I had an exhibition in Paris ten years ago with photos that looked like my paintings. It’s hard to find strange people in Milan. In London, Paris, New York—it’s easier. I am drawn to unexpected materials and unknown stories. I think I keep drawing and painting to find out what the mystery or secret is. I’m always searching for things that haven’t been seen.
At times, while you created together, did it feel like you could see into the future?
Yes, but sometimes I think we created a future.
Elio Iannacci is an award-winning writer, poet and a long-time arts reporter for The Globe and Mail. He has contributed to 80 publications worldwide, including Vogue Italia, The Hollywood Reporter, Maclean’s, The Toronto Star, The National Post and The Toronto Review of Books. His Master’s thesis, Queer-Diva Collaboration in 20th Century Popular Music, was nominated for a Governor General’s Gold Medal.
