With trend forecasters predicting that art will surpass dining as a draw for travellers, Belmond Hotels are upping the ante with thought-provoking or even provocative exhibitions that inspire depth of connection between people and place
Hotels don’t typically invite anything remotely controversial, serving instead as sanctuaries and safe havens where guests can forget the outside world. But a growing number of hotels—and hotel groups—are speaking to the intelligence of their guests, and catering to their desire to deepen their understanding of the social, cultural and political nuances of the places they visit.
And many of them are opting to inspire those conversations through art.
“Great art captures you, animates you, questions you. It can be in a positive or negative way, but it moves you some way,” says Lorenzo Fiaschi, director of Galleria Continua which represents a roster of avant-garde artists such as Ai Weiwei, Eva Jospin, Anish Kapoor and Cai Guo-Qiang. Last year, the gallery partnered with luxury hotel group Belmond to launch Mitico—the Italian word for “mythical”—a series of temporary sculpture installations displayed in select Belmond properties around the world.
Arnaud Champenois, senior vice-president of marketing and communication for Belmond, says: “I’ve always been inspired by sculpture parks, and Belmond is known for gardens of distinction,” adding that he felt the hotel group shared a synergy with the gallery, which has “a strong point of view about the world we live in”.
Galleria Continua was founded in the small Italian town of San Gimignano in Tuscany in 1990, and has since expanded to locations in Rome, Beijing, São Paulo, Havana, Paris and Dubai. They’ve also made a point of leaving the confines of their gallery spaces to bring thought-provoking artworks to a wider audience.
“We started doing it in rural areas and in public spaces, and we have never stopped looking for new geographies and opportunities for art and the public to meet,” says Fiaschi.
The exhibitions at Belmond reflect a sense of inclusivity and community, reinterpreting humble universal themes, such as cooking, painting and observing, shared among different societies.
“These are themes that matter to our audience and to us as a brand,” says Champenois. “The world is changing, and our guests want to share values with the brands they choose.”
Last year, guests at Belmond’s Hotel Cipriani in Venice were invited out to its gardens, where they took their seats in a working kitchen inside an installation by contemporary Indian artist Subodh Gupta, built from used pots and pans. Here, Gupta, along with four assistant chefs, prepared a five-course meal featuring his mother’s recipes in what was an immersive performance piece centred around the themes of identity, individual histories, and reusing and revisiting the past.
At the same time, at Belmond’s Villa San Michele—which boasts views of Florence so stunning that in 1808, Napoleon Bonaparte evicted the monks whose order had been living there since 1404, so he could enjoy the vista for himself—Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich installed a ladder leading to a large, freestanding window on the property’s terraced gardens, framing the city that is considered to be the cradle of Western art.
