“Hotel Art Curators Are a Growing Breed” plus 2 more |
- Hotel Art Curators Are a Growing Breed
- Iowa, Iowa state football players get a good night’s sleep — at a cost
- Gulf Shores, Orange Beach lodging taxes, occupancy rates down due to BP oil spill
| Hotel Art Curators Are a Growing Breed Posted: 29 Aug 2010 07:43 PM PDT The James, a sleekly designed hotel rising over Grand Street in SoHo, will open for business on Wednesday with all the support staff a guest could expect: a concierge, receptionists, bellhops, chambermaids, parking valets. All that, and one helping hand a guest might not expect: a hotel art curator. Hotels have been hanging fine art on their walls for decades now. Ian Schrager commissioned a series of Robert Mapplethorpe prints for what is considered the original boutique hotel, the Morgans, in 1984; the Roger Smith, a small property in Midtown Manhattan, transformed its lobby into an art gallery and performance space as part of a 1991 renovation. But few have gone so far as the James, which hired a young artist, Matthew Jensen, to select original artworks to adorn each of its 14 floors of guest rooms. Mr. Jensen, 29, a photographer whose work was acquired this year by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, may have an unusual job description, but he is also part of a growing breed. As business and building owners look to inject their properties with a little artistic personality, a new class of curators — some of them contractors like Mr. Jensen and some of them staff members — has arisen to help. "There's all these empty walls and there are thousands of artists out there who are living in the city and have never had their art seen by anyone," said Leah McCloskey, who places works by students at the Art Students League in restaurants and apartment and office buildings. "It's about connecting to that generation of artists and to what's going on out there." That connection has been particularly important in the past few years for hotels, which are increasingly seeking novel ways to distinguish themselves from a flood of competition. Responding to guests' desire to have their lodgings project an image of who they are or aspire to be, hotels are taking their artistic endeavors more seriously, industry analysts say, using art to build an identity rather than just to make it look good. "Hoteliers are not only trying to come up with a theme or a style that attracts customers, but they are approaching it in a much more professional and involved way," said Sean Hennessey, chief executive of Lodging Investment Advisors, a consulting firm in Valhalla, N.Y. "It used to be that you could get away with just slapping something up in the lobby," he added, "but more and more customers are looking and evaluating it much more closely." For the James, meeting that demand has meant trying to reflect the artistic microclimate of SoHo. Though many of the artists who once made the area a creative mecca have fled, an emerging art scene is still represented through nonprofit institutions there that support artists and show their work. Denihan Hospitality Group, which is developing the hotel, operates another James Hotel in Chicago that is also dedicated to emerging art. At the Surrey, one of its New York hotels, work by established names like Jenny Holzer, Claes Oldenburg and William Kentridge nods to its location on East 76th Street, near major art showcases like the Whitney Museum of American Art. Mr. Jensen's relationship with the hotel grew from a chance meeting last year with Brad Wilson, the chief operating officer at Denihan, at an exhibition for Mr. Jensen's project "Nowhere in Manhattan," featuring billboard-size photos of the borough's remaining wildernesses that are meant to spur people to visit those places. "It's a way to remind people in a subtle way, if they complain, 'Oh, I never get out into the woods,' well, you can just get on the A train to Inwood, or you can go in the other direction to the Rockaways," Mr. Jensen said. The pictures appealed to Mr. Wilson — who hung three of them on the building facade when it was under construction — and Mr. Jensen's job evolved from there. Once hired, he settled on the idea of using New York-based landscape artists working in different media, one per floor. Using an online database, he amassed a list of about 1,000 artists, which he whittled to the final 14 in three months, creating something that "kind of feels like 14 solo shows stacked on top of each other." Taken as a whole, the installation, called "Stand Here and Listen," is meant to play off the idea of travel, inspired by signs at revered destinations like the Grand Canyon that urge visitors to look out from a particular spot, Mr. Jensen said. One of the artists, Jessica Cannon, said the installation offered guests — perhaps more open to seeing things differently because they are removed from their everyday routines — the chance to experience art in a new way. "You can have this encounter with work that's very intimate, almost like it's in a home or an empty gallery, but you can have it on your own time," said Ms. Cannon, a painter whose work imbues landscapes with a sense of an impending event. "If someone's got insomnia at 3 in the morning, they can pace the halls and have a really intimate and personal encounter." In addition to curating the hotel art, Mr. Jensen manages the studio of John-Paul Philippe, a painter and designer who created several decorative elements for the hotel, including the room numbers. Mr. Jensen has also been overseeing the installation of the collection — the hotel bought the works — and the text that goes with it, along with a potential catalog. Mr. Jensen said the curatorial foray, his first, took him to studios all over the city, exposing him to a whole community of artists. "It was pretty exciting to me to see how many artists are working, just like I do, like obsessively hard, in their own studio tucked away, but nobody's really paying attention to them yet," he said. "There's a lot more emerging than established in New York — once they're established, then they all move upstate. So everyone who wants to do it is doing it here." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Iowa, Iowa state football players get a good night’s sleep — at a cost Posted: 29 Aug 2010 06:46 AM PDT Iowa State opens the football season Thursday at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames. Iowa's first game is Saturday at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. For the players representing the state's largest universities, the games also will provide a university-paid break from campus. Hotels charged Iowa and Iowa State more than $200,000 combined in 2009 for lodging the nights before home games at a time when many others at those universities are being asked to pinch pennies. Players, support staff and coaches once again will be sequestered this season and beyond in Iowa — while beds where they sleep the other six nights of the week are left vacant. It's an issue that: • Caused Division I-AA programs to consider a mandate requiring teams to stay home on nights before home games. • Prompted a member of the Iowa Board of Regents to ask if the money could be better spent. • Motivated one major conference to consider legislation that would have banned the practice for everyone. Whether the debate leads to widespread change is unclear, but this much is certain: The topic creates more points and counterpoints for those involved than a political campaign. "If you're not in that hotel, you're around college people, many who are making noise to around 4 or 5 in the morning on a Friday night — even if you don't intend to be around them," Iowa State coach Paul Rhoads said. "It's an expense, sure, but it's an expense that needs to happen." The Pac-10 Conference introduced an NCAA proposal last year that would have banned major colleges from housing football teams in hotels the night before home games. The proposal was dropped, but the question was clear. Is it a financially responsible practice? The case for hotels If you talk to coaches, the long-term practice is acceptable — and necessary. "The idea is just to get them sheltered a little — get them away from the student body and the revelry of Iowa City or any college town," Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. Ferentz's team stays in Cedar Rapids on nights before home games. They attend team meetings, eat dinner and meet again before going to bed.The cost last year for seven home games totaled $120,324 — or an average of about $17,189 a night — according to a Des Moines Sunday Register open-records request. The money comes from Iowa's athletic budget, which is financed by ticket sales, suite leases, NCAA and Big Ten Conference revenue-sharing, private donations and the Big Ten Network. "Would any of us love to save some money and love to not have our football team stay in hotels during home games?" asked Iowa athletic director Gary Barta. "Yes. But the other side of the coin is that the community of Iowa City, and all college communities for that matter, becomes overwhelmed with visitors. Hotels fill up. Dorm rooms become party-atmosphere crazy — in a good way — but it takes away from an ability to concentrate as a football team. Staying in a hotel provides a controlled environment." The case against hotels The other perspective on the hotel-related decisions focuses on the cost. "It just seems wrong in these tough times," said Michael Gartner of Des Moines, a member of the Iowa Board of Regents. "How many scholarships would that money have provided? How many furloughs would have been prevented? How many books could have been purchased? "Athletics are important, but not as important as education." Barta, Iowa's athletic director, contends the money simply would return to athletic budgets if hotels were not used before home games. "Reinvestment of that money would go either back into football or be shared by our 23 other sports," Barta said. "The money spent on hotels is significant, I don't want to downplay that, but the return on that investment is greater in the overall picture. Lower-division schools lack the financial resources of an Iowa or Iowa State. That's one reason an NCAA subcommittee representing the FCS, formerly known as I-AA, is working on a proposal that will keep teams in their own beds. "It wasn't unanimously supported," said Jim Fallis, athletic director at Northern Arizona and a member of the NCAA Championship Cabinet. "Some schools at the FCS level feel they need to stay in hotels the night before home games, and we understand that. "We also feel that since a majority of us (like Northern Iowa) are not doing it, it made sense to put the (ban) in place because it reduces costs." 'Distractions can happen' The on-again, off-again Pac-10 proposal piqued interest in the issue at the major-college level. "Talk about going away from hotel stays before home football games has been out there for the last several years," Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard said. "It's never taken off because of logistics." Iowa State spent $81,471 last season for six home games — an average of about $13,578 per game. "I don't see anything changing in the future," Pollard said. "Because you're dealing with more individuals than any other sport, you need structure." Coaches and athletic departments argue that it's structure they can control. "I've been known to walk the perimeter of the hotel after everyone's in bed," Iowa State's Rhoads said. "When I coached at Auburn, we stayed in LaGrange, Ga., on nights before home games. I remember one night, a car of four girls pulled up." Rhoads assumed the unscheduled visitors were en route to a late-night meeting with boyfriends. "When they saw me, they got back in the car," Rhoads said. "But the point of the story is that distractions can happen, even in hotels. "It's just that staying in a hotel on nights before home games is a way we can channel everyone toward the common cause." That cause is focusing on the next day's game, rather than succumbing to potential distractions. "In the old days, going back to the 1980s, we had two or three floors in a dorm where our team was housed," Iowa's Ferentz said. "In those days, our players did stay in the dorm on Friday night, which was great, and we had security in the dormitory. "But anyone who's been on college campuses probably knows Friday night is not the greatest night for sleep and solitude." 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| Gulf Shores, Orange Beach lodging taxes, occupancy rates down due to BP oil spill Posted: 29 Aug 2010 10:18 PM PDT GULF SHORES, Ala., — The Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau released tourism figures today for the first portion of a challenging 2010 summer season, which show a decline not as high as once estimated for the Gulf Shores and Orange Beach area. Taxable lodging rentals for May 2010 reached more than $20 million, a 7.3 percent decrease from $22 million collected in May 2009. Meanwhile, taxable retail sales topped $51 million for May 2010, which is a 4.3 percent decrease from $53 million for May 2009. "In May, our beaches and the public's perception were both in a completely different state," said Herb Malone, president/CEO of the AGCCVB. While June taxes are being processed, hotel and condominium occupancy rates for the month allude to a 20 to 30 percent decrease. Hotels were filled more than 60 percent while condominiums were about 44 percent full. These rates show a decrease of 22.7 percent and 38.4 percent, respectively, when compared to June 2009. July numbers should be available in August. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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