Hotel California: Guests sleep over at Frieze New York

New York – Selected guests at Frieze New York 2014 were given the opportunity to stay the night at Al’s Grand Hotel, a conceptual art piece staged at the show that doubled as a functional hotel.

The work was presented as part of Frieze Projects, the annual programme of artists’ commissions at Frieze New York. It was a revival of Al’s Grand Hotel as originally realised in Los Angeles in 1971, a classic work that positioned the viewer as a hospitality consumer, while also serving as a meeting place for the city’s artists.

At Frieze, Al’s Grand Hotel featured vintage interiors with pieces rented from local prop houses, including two kitsch bedrooms called The Bridal Suite and The Jesus Room. Guests ate dinner in the hotel, chatted with curators and watched classic films and contemporary video on television in their rooms.

This is the second year that Frieze Projects has presented an immersive work blending hospitality with fine art, following the 2013 piece VAULT, an invitation-only cocktail bar that LS:N Global described in our Cocktail Art microtrend.