Hotel Art Grows Up
Art has arrived — as a marketing tool.
Fabien Verschaere/Le Méridien
ART IN HAND A key card created by Fabien Verschaere for Le Méridien hotels.
In the past, when a hotel or resort company such as Starwood wanted to enhance the brand of one of its chains, it turned to an advertising agency or a branding firm. Today, it hires a curator.
A year and a half ago, Starwood Hotels hired Jérôme Sans — the founder of the contemporary art museum Le Palais de Tokyo in Paris and now the artistic director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing — to be the cultural curator of its Le Méridien line of hotels. It was part of an effort to enhance Le Méridien's "core values," a senior vice president at Starwood, Eva Ziegler, said. Aligning Le Méridien with culture made sense. The hotel chain was founded by Air France and has long been associated with the arts; the first hotel in Paris, Le Méridien Étoile, is well known for its jazz club.
Mr. Sans's first steps toward integrating culture into the Le Méridien experience include launching a line of artist-designed key cards that, in addition to opening one's room, provide free access to local cultural centers, from the Moore Space in Miami to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai. The artists Michael Lin, Sam Samore, and Hisham Bharoocha designed the first set of cards.
Mr. Sans has also commissioned artist-designed doors for the front entrances of the hotels, "sound art" for the elevators, and special scents (designed by the fragrance company Le Labo) to envelop visitors as they enter the lobby.
Ms. Ziegler distinguished Le Méridien from "art hotels," where a wealthy owner hangs art from his own collection, and the visitor only appreciates it passively. "That is more about we show you, versus [at Le Méridien] we provide you a platform in which you can engage and discover and be stimulated," she said.
When Mr. Sans was asked if it was difficult to go from working for cultural institutions to working for a hotel chain, he said he saw little difference between the two.
"It's very close to the way we invented the Palais de Tokyo," he said. When it opened in 2001, the Palais de Tokyo broke with art museum tradition by staying open from noon to midnight, with a bar and restaurant that remained open until 2 a.m. "I was as interested in the bar as in the programming," Mr. Sans said. "Now, with Le Méridien, we are transforming the experience of the hotel," he said.
