21c Museum Hotels Announces Inaugural Exhibitions and Site-Specific Installations for Third Property in Bentonville, Arkansas
Works reflect the dynamic nature and global reach of contemporary art today and feature an international group of artists including Daan Roosegaarde, Alexandre Arrechea, Slater Bradley, Serkan Ozkaya, Patricia Piccinini, Oleg Dou, Chris Doyle, Johnston Foster, Joana Vasconcelos, and Hong-Yo Ji
21c Museum Hotels is proud to bring eight site-specific installations, a multi-media group exhibition and a solo exhibition by both emerging and internationally acclaimed artists, to downtown Bentonville. Curated by Chief Curator and Director of Art Programming Alice Gray Stites in collaboration with 21c founders Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, these exhibitions are emblematic of the founders’ mission to share new art and ideas with the public. The 104-room hotel (200 NE A Street) features 12,000 square feet of museum space, which doubles as meeting and event space, solely dedicated to exhibiting the art of the 21st century. The Museum is open to the public free of charge, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and offers rotating curated exhibitions, site-specific multi-media installations, and other cultural programming such as poetry readings, film screenings, artist lectures, and live performances. This is the company’s third property to open, with the other properties located in Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH.
“21c is dedicated to integrating contemporary art into daily life, and to expanding the audience for new art,” says Stites. “Our programming will be responsive to the city, to the space and to what is happening in the world. We seek to be an active member of the cultural community and look forward to the many collaborative opportunities that this region will offer.”
Located just north of Bentonville’s historic square and a quarter mile from the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 21c Museum Hotels tapped architect Deborah Berke to design the 100,000 square foot property. Berke’s design balances grand public spaces scaled to suit an extensive contemporary art collection with intimate, inviting private spaces. The property’s public and gallery spaces are elegant and modern with high ceilings, cool tones and polished concrete floors, while guest rooms, also designed by Berke, offer a distinctly residential feel with its custom designed furniture in subtle neutral tones. The integration of natural light is a central focus; he design team achieved this through the use of skylights, light monitors, large windows and an interior courtyard visible from the restaurant and the main corridor near the guest elevators. 21c is also home to The Hive restaurant led by executive chef and Arkansas native Matthew McClure, whose menu highlights the ingredients and culinary landscape of the state. The following works and exhibitions are currently on display:
OUTSIDE\IN: Site Specific Art at 21c Bentonville
OUTSIDE\IN is a collection of eight site-specific installations and includes sculpture, painting, wallpaper, installation and new media art. Works are integrated into a variety of spaces around and within the building, responding to both the architecture and to the surrounding environment. Featured artists and their works are:
- Alexandre Arrechea, “Orange Tree,” 2010.
- Anne Peabody, “Hide and Seek,” 2013.
- Daan Roosegaarde, “FLOW 5.0,” 2005-2009.
- Serkan Ozkaya, “A Sudden Gust of Wind in Bentonville,” 2013.
- Sam Van Aken, “Tree of 40 Fruits,” 2013.
- Mattia Bonetti, “Untitled,” Wallpaper.
- Rob Wynne, “Flypaper.”
- Chris Doyle, “unfolded,” 2010-2013
INAUGURAL EXHIBITIONS:
Hybridity: The New Frontier is a group exhibition featuring over 85 works from the 21c collection. Employing photography, painting, sculpture and video, the exhibition explores the diminishing boundaries between human and animals, recent advances in scientific technology, and the shifting environmental and economic conditions actively altering the earth and its inhabitants. Featured artists include Amelia Biewald, Edward Burtynsky, Oleg Dou, Elena Dorfman, Johnston Foster, Patricia Piccinini, Ken Little, Hong-Yo Ji and Pieter Hugo. This exhibition will be on view in The Hive, Lobby Gallery, Video Gallery and Galleries 2 – 4 through July 2013.
Slater Bradley: Dead Ringer presents a haunting meditation on mythology, mortality, and identity. A groundbreaking collaboration between Bradley and Academy Award nominated cinematographer Ed Lachman. “Dead Ringer” includes two video installations and a series of photographs referencing “Dark Blood,” a1993 film starring River Phoenix that was in production during the time of Phoenix’s death. The final body of work in Bradley’s long-term doppelganger project with Benjamin Brock, “Dead Ringer” explores the artist’s interest in Phoenix and the relationships created and fractured among fans and icons. This exhibition will be on view in Gallery 1 and the Main Gallery through July 2013.
About 21c Museum
A multi-venue museum, 21c was founded by Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, contemporary art collectors and preservationists who are committed to bringing works of art to the public through innovative exhibitions and programs that integrate contemporary art into daily life. 21c Museum presents a range of arts programming at its three properties curated by Chief Curator and Director of Art Programming Alice Gray Stites, including thought-provoking solo and group exhibitions that reflect the global nature of art today, site-specific, commissioned installations as well as a variety of cultural programming. The organization also loans works of art to major museums—past loans include MASS MoCA, the Contemporary Art Museum Houston, and the National Gallery of Ontario—and collaborates on arts initiatives with artists and cultural organizations worldwide. Since opening in Louisville, KY in 2006, the Museum has presented more than 75 exhibitions including Blue: Matter, Mood and Melancholy; Alter Ego: A Decade of Work by Anthony Goicolea; Ann Hamilton: Bookweights; Consuming Cultures: A Global View; Cuba Now; Simen Johan: Until the Kingdom Comes; Creating Identity: Portraits Today; and All’s Fair in Art and War: Envisioning Conflict.
About 21c Museum Hotels
Founded in 2007, 21c Museum Hotels is a growing company that oversees the expansion and management of 21c Museum Hotels nationally. 21c Museum Hotel was founded in Louisville, Kentucky by Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, contemporary art collectors and preservationists, who had a vision for bringing art into people’s daily lives and supporting the revitalization of their hometown. The couple selected architect Deborah Berke to convert five 19th century tobacco and bourbon warehouses into a 90-room boutique hotel, contemporary art museum, award-winning restaurant Proof on Main, and cultural civic center in the heart of downtown Louisville. The property’s 9,000 square feet of contemporary art space features a rotating program of curated exhibitions as well as site-specific commissioned installations. 21c Louisville has earned top honors five years in a row in the Condé Nast Traveler annual Readers’ Choice survey and was voted among the top hotels in the world. With the success of the Louisville property, and with strong local partners who share the belief that art can be an economic driver for a community, 21c is expanding outside of Louisville. 21c Cincinnati opened in November of 2012, in the 100-year-old former Metropole Hotel building in the heart of downtown’s Backstage District. Offering 8,000 square feet of exhibition and meeting space, multi-media site-specific art installations, 156 rooms and a spa and rooftop bar. The property also features Metropole restaurant led by chef Michael Paley. Bentonville, AR is the company’s third property to open, and future properties have been announced in Lexington, KY and Durham, NC
For press information contact:
Stephanie Greene
502.882.6231
sgreene@21cHotels.com
