PICTURE PERFECT
Picture Perfect - Luxury Travel Magazine
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Picture Perfect | |||||
| By: Andrew Conway, Issue 29- Summer 2007 | |||||
| (The Merrion, Dublin, Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas, Windsor Court, New Orleans, The Observatory, Sydney, Four Seasons Washington DC, Lake House, Daylesford, Marina Mandarin Singapore, Art’otels) | |||||
| THE FINEST LUXURY HOTELS AND RESORTS AROUND THE WORLD ARE DISCOVERING THAT HOSPITALITY IS A VERY FINE ART INDEED. | |||||
| There was a time, not so long ago, when all a luxury hotel had to do to entice guests was provide clean sheets, a decent meal, and a chocolate on the pillow each night. How times have changed. No respectable hotel or resort worth it’s five star rating these days is without a celebrity chef, cutting-edge spa, sleepinducing mattresses, and a wine cellar awash with vintage labels. But a unique and fascinating phenomenon – which gives new meaning to the art of hospitality – is transforming the lobbies, lounges and landscapes of the hottest, hippest and grandest hotels of the world, and sparking a flurry of interest in the international and Australian art world. While the lion’s share of major artworks are in the world’s best museums, as well as private and corporate collections, an ever-growing number of luxury hotels are starting to view art as a major attraction – not to mention a point of difference in this highly competitive industry – and turning their guest rooms, suites, hallways and reception areas into public galleries. This picture-perfect art revolution appears to know no bounds, framed only by the depth of the hotel owners’ pockets and the imagination of the interior designers they employ to create these stylish and highly individual guest galleries. It’s a phenomenon on so many levels – hotels with art, hotels supporting art, and hotels as art – deciphering it is something of an art in itself. And everyone seems to be a winner, from the superwealthy owners who can indulge their great passions, to the curators and interior designers who source, buy and display the art, the high-profile international artists and emerging local talents who can gain instant recognition by a major hotel commission, and hotel guests themselves who can lie back in luxury and think of Monet, Picasso and Warhol. “An art collection that’s beautiful and original can add a very glamorous edge to a hotel guest’s overall experience,” says Patrick Griffin, regional managing director of Orient-Express Hotels in Australia and general manager of Sydney’s award-winning Observatory Hotel which, coincidentally, has recently purchased at auction two Sir Sidney Nolan paintings – Kwe (River Kwai) and Antarctica – which now have pride of place in the hotel lobby. Amassing an art collection of note can be a very costly exercise, not just in the painting themselves but also in insurance, security, proper climate-controls and lighting. Some fortunate hotels like the Four Seasons Washington DC, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in South Beach, Florida, and the Bellagio in Las Vegas have fabulously wealthy owners – William Louis-Dreyfus, Diana Lowenstein and Steve Wynn (see box over page) respectively – who have donated their own private seven-figure collections. Others like the historic Windsor Court Hotel in New Orleans, with its stunning collection of Gainsborough, Reynolds and van Dyck originals, and Merrion Hotel in Dublin, are custodians of major artworks from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. There are hotels reputedly painted by art maestros, like Orient-Express Hotel’s exquisite Villa San Michele in Florence, the façade of which is attributed to the great Michelangelo, while others like Amsterdam’s Hotel de l’Europe feature a number of Dutch Masters that outshine the city’s own museums. Modern art is also writ large and loud across the world’s newest, hottest and hippest hotels, with many partnering with cutting-edge galleries, commissioning the best emerging talents, and even spawning new architectural designs where the hotel is built around the art, rather than the other way round. The Hotel Gansevoort in New York’s trendy Meatpacking District partners with the high-profile Wooster Projects gallery to display head-turning artworks, including Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat. The Germany-based Art’otels, with uber-stylish properties in Berlin, Pottsdam, Dresden, Budapest, Madrid, Brussels and Reykjavik, has taken the art of hospitality to a whole new level, designing the hotels around the works of single artists, and creating public rooms with a museum look-and-feel to provide maximum impact to the extraordinary modern art. And if you think the serious end of the art world is sniffy at what could be viewed as unashamed commercialism, think again. The International Directory of Corporate Art Collections takes the new phenomenon so seriously, it has created its own Top 20 List of global luxury hotels and resorts which display outstanding collections of contemporary and historic art, www.artfulhotels.com, while the Ministry for the Arts in Singapore last year awarded the prestigious Patron of the Arts gong to Marina Mandarin Hotel for its on-going support of the city’s performing and visual arts, the first Singapore hotel to win the award. A casual stroll through international hotel directories, such as The Leading Hotels of the World, Small Luxury Hotels, and Orient-Express Hotels, is like a journey through the history of classic and modern art, each offering a broad canvas of culturally important paintings, drawings, sculptures and furnishings either owned by the hotel itself, loaned by partner art galleries, or permanent exhibitions by featured artists, often which guests can purchase along with the fluffy bathrobe – for the right price, of course. Australia has also joined the hotel art movement with several properties – including Sydney’s Observatory Hotel and Victoria’s Lake House in Daylesford – exhibiting both high-profile and local artists. Allan Wolf- Tasker, Lake House’s co-managing director and an artist in his own right, says he’s delighted to show the works of local artists in such a picturesque setting. “Many of our artists are exceptional creative talents,” he says, “representing but a little micro-scene of the rich tapestries of our lives.” The Observatory Hotel’s Patrick Griffin believes exceptional art can provide a unique point of difference to a hotel. “It can help set ourselves apart, and the guests really do appreciate it,” he says. The job of creating hotel art is no easy task, especially when many properties are looking for maximum impact with limited budgets. Juliet Ashworth, a partner in Chhada Siembieda Australia, the award-winning interior architecture firm whose work is highly sought after by luxury hotel brands worldwide, says the days of hanging cheap prints to fill wall space are long gone. “Creating today’s luxury hotel is like creating a stage for some fabulous, aspirational and elegant production to happen every day for those who pass through,” she says. “Today’s discerning travellers know about art just as they have an appreciation of interior design and good cuisine and wine. You can’t fudge it. The art has to be stylishly presented and intrinsically worthwhile, though not necessarily valuable in monetary terms.” Juliet insists it’s also important to commission art appropriate to the location. “We try to use local artists when the right talent is available, but it would not be unusual to find classic bronze statues, made in a small workshop in Bangkok, alongside glassworks from Adelaide displayed in a hotel in India, or artworks produced by a young artist in a garret in Bondi hanging in the lobby of a five-star hotel in Hong Kong. It’s a question of combining the right idea with the appropriate talent, and then finding a way to actually make the piece and to install it.” While exceptional art can be a thing of great beauty in the eye of the beholder, maintaining a keen sense of humour is paramount. When France’s President Mitterand stayed in the Trafalgar Suite at The Ritz in London some years ago, he asked to have the painting of the Battle of Trafalgar replaced by a less painful subject. The hotel’s larrikin managing director of the time, Terry Holmes, said he only had two other paintings – the Battle of Agincourt and the Battle of Waterloo. Apparently the President’s face was, well, a picture. | |||||
| Details: | |||||
| Further details, The Merrion, Dublin: www.merrionhotel.com | |||||
| Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas, www.bellagio.com | |||||
| Windsor Court, New Orleans: www.windsorcourthotel.com | |||||
| The Observatory, Sydney: www.observatoryhotel.com.au | |||||
| Four Seasons Washington DC: www.fourseasons.com | |||||
| Lake House, Daylesford: www.lakehouse.com.au | |||||
| Marina Mandarin Singapore: www.marina-mandarin.com.sg | |||||
| Art’otels: www.artotel.de | |||||
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