The combination of luxury hotels and contemporary art is nothing new. But the Belmond group is doing things a little differently. This year, it has invited Daniel Buren, the 85-year-old French artist, and self-described inventor of in situ art practice, to create six projects in hotels as far apart as Rio de Janeiro and Majorca.
The first of these bespoke installations, which will be on show until February 2025, was revealed last month in Cape Town. There, Buren has chosen to surround an 18th-century fountain with a circle of eight square columns, decorated with his trademark stripes, in this case in blue, pink and yellow.
The Belmond project began in 2022, under the title of MITICO. It is a co-collaboration between the high-end hotel group and Galleria Continua, which started with a space in San Gimignano in Italy 34 years ago. (Continua now has galleries in Beijing, Rome, Paris, Havana, Dubai and Sao Paolo.) “For me it’s important to share art – whether that is in a public place, a museum, or a hotel,” says Lorenzo Fiaschi, Continua’s co-founder, who has selected the participating artists from his gallery’s roster.
The name MITICO describes the historically resonant nature of the Belmond properties chosen for this initiative. Arnaud Champenois, the company’s vice-president of global brand and marketing, chose each of the locations for their legendary status. In Cape Town, Buren was working in the stunning gardens of the Mount Nelson, a pink-painted belle epoque landmark in the city, which has been a hotel since the turn of the last century.
Buren’s Colourful Halt for Mount Nelson features a series of columns with his signature stripes, arranged around a fountain in the grounds of the Mount Nelson hotel © DB-ADAGP
Buren’s work will embellish the façade of the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro this month, when he treats its ocean-facing windows with translucid colour. “I consider it to be a public piece,” says Buren. “People on the street will experience it all along the façade of the building.” These will be followed by the Villa San Michele and Castello di Casole in Tuscany; the Hotel Cipriani in Venice; and La Residencia in Majorca.
In 2022, Subodh Gupta created a work in the gardens of the Cipriani – a small-scale house made of pots and pans. On a couple of occasions, the artist himself came to cook Indian food. “The idea was to create his cosmos,” says Champenois. In 2023, six artists were chosen to work in six properties, including Michelangelo Pistoletto, who installed a series of bronzes, called Gli Estruschi, in the grounds of the Castello Di Casole. “These are not easy, simplistic projects,” says Fiaschi. “We are offering something artistically serious, even if it is only for the summer.”