When it opened in 1926, the Lingotto was the largest car factory in the world. Located in the industrial south of Turin, it produced Fiat cars along a vertical production line that wound its way up five concrete floors, culminating in a rooftop racetrack several kilometres long, with steep parabolic curves used to test the finished vehicles. Though hailed by visionaries such as Le Corbusier as a masterpiece of industrial architecture, by the 1980s it had become obsolete and was at risk of being abandoned.

Today, the legendary Swiss photographer Walter Pfeiffer is sitting in a chic café overlooking the racetrack. A young woman sits on his lap, laughing, as a curator tries to coax him into eating some risotto. A large daisy pokes out from the collar of his royal-blue fleece jacket. Pfeiffer has just turned 80. A major retrospective of his work, titled In Good Company, has just opened at the Pinacoteca Agnelli, the art institution that now occupies the Lingotto rooftop. Curated by Simon Castets and Nicola Trezzi, it is Pfeiffer’s first large-scale, comprehensive exhibition in Europe outside Switzerland. More than 100 works unfold thematically across six rooms, spanning the early 70s to the present.

For an artist known for his pioneering visual language, it is striking that the words most often used to describe Pfeiffer’s work belong to the realm of sound: cacophonous, polyvocal, loud. There is certainly a sense of theatre, with a stylised mise-en-scène shaped by Pfeiffer’s years as a window dresser, and an ability to elevate quotidian objects into dramatic signifiers. While Pfeiffer is a self-taught photographer who has always considered himself an amateur, he was formally educated in Bauhaus theories of form, colour and interdisciplinarity. His highly saturated photographs and film works collapse distinctions between personal and commercial practice, mapping out a lexicon of sexuality and desire, comedy and consumption. That his heroes were Cecil Beaton and Andy Warhol makes sense: his sensitivity to formal beauty and regal flair is matched only by his affinity for hustlers, outsiders, and all things underground and avant-garde.

“Great beauty is nothing less than a living miracle,” Cecil Beaton once wrote. “It’s not the result of achievement, skill, patience or endeavour. It’s just a divine happening.” Pfeiffer might say the same of his own career. After decades spent on the margins – working as a photographer, graphic designer and commercial illustrator, and known only within cult circles – it was in the early 2000s that fashion magazines and luxury brands began to come calling. Pfeiffer’s relationship with Dazed dates back to those early years of the new millennium, when he was already in his sixties. Working closely with Robbie Spencer, the magazine’s former creative director, Pfeiffer’s contributions fizz with his characteristic blend of youthful exuberance and insolent eroticism.

Before the exhibition opened to the public, I sat down with Pfeiffer to discuss the enduring power of magazines, the pursuit of beauty, his work ethic and his record collection.

You have a long history with Dazed, especially with [former creative director] Robbie Spencer.

Walter Pfeiffer: Robbie! Oh, Robbie was great. And in fact, these shoes I’m wearing, I got from Robbie!

He gave you his shoes?

Walter Pfeiffer: No, no, I saw them on him and thought, ‘I want them!’ So, I ordered them. And now I am always in them. I love Dazed.

There seems to be a real magazine logic to this exhibition. Some images are arranged in diptychs like magazine spreads. In other rooms, it feels like photographs are laid out on the wall like one might lay out a publication, adopting more of a page architecture than that of a traditional exhibition.

Walter Pfeiffer: The spirit focuses less on individual works, and comes more from the publishing system, on how images can be combined together. It’s an approach that goes back to my very first book, actually.

“It’s a mentality, remaining curious. And I can never stop chasing beauty. There’s no time to stop, because you might find beauty when you least expect it”

The magazine and the book form have been so significant to the development of your practice and distinctive style.

Walter Pfeiffer: The limitations of the double-page spread were very significant to my early work. Which images might go together, and which deserve to take up the whole space? But it’s very intuitive, I don’t follow many other rules.

It feels fitting to view your work in a former factory, because you seem so industrious. You just turned 80, but you’re still working.

Walter Pfeiffer: My mind is working non-stop. It’s a mentality, remaining curious. And I can never stop chasing beauty. There’s no time to stop, because you might find beauty when you least expect it. But it’s harder now that I can’t walk so well.

You’ve talked about not having a sofa in your apartment because when you’re home, you’re always working, never resting.

Walter Pfeiffer: Yes, but I must admit I also loved going to the homes of my various girlfriends, because they were always so comfortable! We’d lie on the bed and talk for hours. And these days, I make sure that on Sundays, there’s no work. I always try to get out, hiking and whatnot, but it’s harder.

You’ve been the subject of dozens of books over the last few decades, and you now have a major European retrospective. Can you really still call yourself an amateur?

Walter Pfeiffer: An amateur affiné now, perhaps! The way I see it, if I were a pro, I’d have a studio, and next week Nestle would be coming. I’m an amateur through life; it’s a sensibility. It’s different to being a beginner. I meet lots of youngsters these days who are very driven, very pushy, very fame-hungry. Always networking, taking this person or that person flowers. I have never been like that, I’ve always been a nobody. Always on the outside. But it never stopped me. And now, [the success] has seemed to come on its own. 

Do you think your idea of beauty, or what is beautiful, has changed over the years?

Walter Pfeiffer: No. You have the same eyes. But I have also learned to know when it’s over. When my curiosity has moved on. Like Roy Orbison, from the 50s, you know? ‘It’s Over’. That’s one of my favourite songs.

Do you listen to music when you work?

Walter Pfeiffer: I listen to the old hit parades. ‘Be My Baby’, The Ronettes, Phil Spector. Again, Roy Orbison, very 50s and early 60s. Music for me is like a time machine. I’m also interested in the current top ten, I am curious about who is number one, and I want to watch the videos.

You’ve been in front of the camera a fair bit recently. Do you enjoy being the model?

Walter Pfeiffer: Well, it’s playful. I love to play, and I love playful people. If I have confidence that it’s going to make a good picture, the photographer can do whatever they want with me. And through being the model, I learn a lot about the experience of being photographed. I see what I need to do as a photographer.

“I meet lots of youngsters these days who are very driven, very pushy, very fame-hungry... I have never been like that, I’ve always been a nobody. Always on the outside. But it never stopped me”

You seem to thrive on dialogue, on conversation.

Walter Pfeiffer: When I’m behind the camera, I’m so concentrated on connecting with the person I’m photographing. It’s very intense. I end up exhausted.

Is sex a conversation?

Walter Pfeiffer: I’m not afraid of sex, of course. But I’m more interested in sensuality. My favourite models have an irreverence, a lack of self-consciousness. They don’t care that I’m an artist. When I started taking photographs, I was drawn to boxers, drug dealers and young men with this kind of movie star energy. Many of them ended up in prison.

Cats are pretty irreverent. They also appear throughout your work, and you’ve described them as your colleagues in the Walter Pfeiffer Company. Do you still have cats?

Walter Pfeiffer: Ahhh, Pips! Pips had a very high voice, and so I named him after Gladys Knight and the Pips. Somebody said to me, ‘Pips is not a cat’s name!’ but I said, 'Why not?’ And my other cat was Nocciolina. Both of them appear in the show – Nocciolina is the one laughing, and Pips is hiding behind a scarf. Pips had been a street cat, but after he came to me, he lived with me until he was very, very old. Then, when I started travelling more for work, I couldn’t have cats any more.

In Good Company runs at Pinacoteca Agnelli until September 13