Luxury hotels sow contemporary art in their gardens

About the MITICO exhibition born from the partnership between the Galleria Continua and the Italian hotels of the Belmond group. Do you like contemporary art and big hotels? Go to Italy! Thanks to the MITICO exhibition imagined this summer by the Belmond group, owned by LVMH, with the art gallery Galleria Continua, opened in 1990 in a former cinema of San Gimignano and now present worldwide, Four mythical hotel establishments celebrate in their sumptuous gardens the talent and world view of four internationally renowned artists. «This was one of the flagship events of the opening week, at the end of April, of the 59th Venice Biennale», recalls Fabrice Bousteau at the opening of his article for the summer issue of Beaux Arts Magazine, about the famous little house created by Subodh Gupta with thousands of stainless steel kitchen utensils recovered in India, and installed in the gardens of the Hotel Cipriani, on the island of Giudecca. A sparkling work of art all the more lively as its author realized three times a day during the whole week a culinary performance inviting visitors to meet inside. To be exchanged, as the “adda” wants, in Hindi. The Indian artist born in 1964 in Khagaul, Bihar, is a star in his country. Living and working in Delhi, the former theatre actor then trained at the Patna College of Arts and Crafts, before obtaining a scholarship from the New Delhi National Academy of Fine Arts in 1990, saw his career take off in the world of contemporary art when his work «The Way Home», exhibited at the Gwangju Biennale in 2000, allowed him to meet the curator Nicolas Bourriaud. The Galleria Continua in San Gimignano dedicated a monographic exhibition to him in 2008, and in 2010 he designed the sets and costumes of «Will follow a thousand years of calm», the creation of the French dancer and choreographer Angelin Preljocav. The house in plates, pans and other galvanized iron milk jars which hosts its culinary performance «Cooking the world» takes its name from the title of the book of the French researcher Charles Malamoud, who studied the rites and thoughts of Vedic India, that is to say India of the 2nd millennium BC. The Venice Biennale and the Hotel Cipriani did not really have the first, since Subodh Gupta had already declined the installation and performance in 2017 at the Basel Fair. The fact remains that this «anti-monument» to the glory of everyday life, of the ordinary toil of the Indian people, this work of art visible here until November 19, built on the basis of objects and goods exported or surviving from colonization, is fascinating and perfectly illustrates the artist’s cult phrase, “I live in India and love work.” he second partner hotel of the MITICO exhibition is a former monastery overlooking Florence, nestled in the hills of Fiesole and with less than forty rooms: Villa San Michele. Leandro Erlich was invited to give it a higher dimension until November 7. The Argentinian artist, born in 1973 in Buenos Aires, notably discovered at the Venice Biennale in 2001 with «Swimming Pool», a work that has since entered the permanent collection of the Kanazawa Museum in Japan, pays tribute to the superb geographical location of the place with “Window and Ladder”. Overlooking the city of the Florentine Renaissance, a gigantic window supported by a ladder offers both a view of nature and art… In short, the beauty of the world. Because after the kitchen seen by Subodh Gupta, MITICO intends to reinterpret other universal habits, such as here the observation with Leandro Erlich, but also the gratitude, with the work of Michelangelo Pistoletto installed until November 14 at the Castello di Casole, in the beautiful and hilly Tuscan countryside. The Italian painter, engraver and sculptor born in 1933 in Biella, Piedmont, is known since the 1960s for having joined the movement Arte Povera, He started his career as an apprentice in his father’s painting restoration workshop while training in advertising graphics. His first exhibition in the United States was in 1966, and the following year he won the first prize at the Sao Paulo Biennale. Prices will then follow. In 1968 he withdrew his participation in the Venice Biennale and almost completely left the artistic scene by becoming a ski instructor in 1974 in the mountains of San Sicario. He has worked in sculpture and theatre, and has lived and worked in Turin since 1990. In the gardens of the Castello di Casole in Siena, Michelangelo Pistoletto has installed four splendid bronze Etruscan sculptures called «Caress the trees». For it is a question of gratitude that is at stake here. Of the necessary protection to be given to nature. Grouped under the generic name «Loving the World», the human figures of different colors protect the centenary trees and echo the castle of the tenth century superbly restored to become a hotel of the Belmond group. You only have to see the one that is totally connected to a 400-year-old magic olive tree to be overwhelmed by the universal dimension of this artistic installation. Cooking, observation, gratitude… and painting: MITICO’s four keys to opening the doors to the art of living. Thus «Coloring the World» was born from the imagination of Pascale Marthine Tayou to perch alongside the Grand Hotel Timeo, in Taormina, until December 31. The Cameroonian visual artist born in 1966 in Nkongsamba feminized his two first names from the beginning of his career to distance himself with irony from the concept of artistic authorship and gender assignment. Thus he does the same with his themes or his techniques, which he multiplies and diversifies at will so as never to enter into any box: if the first works of art that made him known spoke of AIDS, He also addressed rural or globalization in the following. The Venice Biennales of 2005 and 2009 brought him the consecration born in 2002 to the Documenta 11 of Cassel. Facing the Etna on the slopes of Taormina, the lush gardens of the Grand Hotel Timeo welcome today its «Routes of Paradise», as a path crossing the 6 ha of the property along which the artist colored hundreds of stones of all colors, like an echo of countless flowers illuminating the surrounding nature. A path lined with four human-sized crystal totems, irradiated with sun and dressed in elements from all walks of life to better pay tribute to the process of encounter between peoples and cultures. Exactly the concept of MITICO, inviting travelers and contemporary art enthusiasts to approach cultures in a different way, drawing on the essence and beauty of each destination.