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Art House: Hotels that are truly pieces of art
Hotels as performance art - for the traveller who wants more than just a fluffy bathrobe.
By Clara Young
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Guests climb up a short ladder on the sidewalk and through a door into a basic room with a bath that looks like it's right out of Travelodge.
"The people who come on our organized trips don't want something that's anonymous," says Eric Mézan, who founded the Paris-based art-consulting agency Art Process and its spinoff, Art Travel Desk, which puts together customized art tours all over the world. "They want something that's tailor-made for them. They want to experience travel differently."
Art Travel Desk will book its clients at André Balazs' Miami Beach spa hotel, The Standard, for example, while they make the rounds at Art Basel Miami Beach and beyond. But if Mézan thinks his clients are on a quest for something a little more off-the-wall, he'll go for something like the Salon Parisien.
Here, in video artist Frédérique Lecerf's spacious studio apartment in Paris' Butte Aux Cailles neighbourhood, you're not living in a work of art; you're living where artists work.
Friends come by to pick up or drop off work. Someone may come by to paint a mural on the wall outside. The house itself is an informal exhibition space with a rotating selection of videos, paintings and other art installations showcased in every room. But all this is mere art as spectator sport. To really get into the thick of the creative process, fork out 50 Euros for a dinner party/performance piece and you may find yourself in Lecerf's rococo-style dining room, being videotaped spooning gold gazpacho into your mouth, cutting into a gilded pork roast or stuffing an 18-karat baked apple into your mouth. "It's like eating a still life," says Lecerf, who specializes in lavish gold-leaf meals. Lecerf and Olivier Goetz - an art critic who moonlights as a chef - concoct monochromatic meals in not-always-appetizing hues, including pitch-black dinners, with starters such as oysters and winkles with black truffles, and all-turquoise feasts. As Lecerf explains, "People who want a direct and immediate connection with an artists' community like to come here."
There is a similar philosophy behind Michèle Mariaud's two-floor SoHo artists' loft in Manhattan. A Quebecer who quit advertising four years ago to become an art dealer and consultant, Mariaud and her photographer husband decided to bring in a little extra income by opening their house to arts-oriented guests - many of whom book through Mézan's Art Travel Desk.
Click here to read more about art hotels.
Related articles:
Travel guide: Dublin, Ireland
Travel trend watch: East coast style
ELLE travel: The magic of Columbia
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