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Living in the work of art: interview with Hotel des Arts owner Rich Singer
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The Shepard Fairey Room. Image: Hotel des Arts.
Hotel des Arts, a funky little hotel on Bush St. near the Chinatown gate has caught the attention of travel guides and art critics alike with its unique concept: each room has been customized by the hottest urban artists from San Francisco, New York, and LA. It has become an underground hit of sorts with travel writers, Europeans, and younger travelers looking for inexpensive, alternative accommodations that immerses guests in the San Francisco art culture. People don't come to Hotel des Arts to sink into a cookie-cutter hotel room: here one can contemplate a David Choe mural while sitting on the toilet, wake up to Kelly Tunstall's whimsical illustrations, and admire the work of Shepard Fairey, and Tim Gaskin, among others. There are rooms evocative of gritty New York subways, bubble gum pop-worlds, and even a highly conceptual version of the Unabomber's lair (see: Anthony Skirvin's room). Rich Singer, the hotel owner, maintains a commitment to preserving the integrity of the art and the artists' ideas, even though some rooms have
been met with equally strong praise and criticism.
Rich Singer along with hotel manager, Joe Ramirez, agreed to sit down with me to talk about the hotel.
Me: Tell me about the history of Hotel des Arts. When did you think of the concept and how did you get started? When did the hotel open? What occupied this space before?
Rich: We acquired the hotel around 2002 in the wake of the 9/11 crash and at the time it was called the Good Luck Hotel. The building itself was constructed around 1918 and it was initially a German bed and breakfast. It has gone through a lot of iterations since. The basement where my office is was actually once a bomb shelter for about twenty years. We weren't sure exactly what we were going to do because it's a funky old hotel...it's got all these narrow hallways that wrap around and small rooms. Unless you completely tear it down and rebuild it, it will always be what it is. We didn't want to rebuild it and make it the Four Seasons--we liked the character of the building and there's a lot of history in this place...it's something that we wanted to preserve.
So we thought we'd do something art oriented and we started hosting gallery openings and hanging some work on the walls. But the real vision of painting the rooms and bringing in urban, graffiti style artists evolved in 2004 when we reopened as the Hotel des Arts. We hooked up with John Doffing of Start SOMA--he's been our artistic connection and consultant for new artists. He introduced us to the work of artists we eventually commissioned to paint our rooms. At the time, some of our artists such as David Choe were just starting to take off and John Doffing really helped us select people who have since become very popular.
Me: Do you have a background in art?
Rich: I appreciate art. I'm an artist in my mind only--I have no formal training.
Me: Why did you choose this particular type of art (i.e. urban, graffiti, skate culture)?
Rich: It fit with San Francisco and the image we wanted for the hotel. Our hotel is largely targeted toward a younger, 20-30 year old crowd. At the time, the graffiti world was rather under represented in galleries and museums and we wanted to bring that to a larger audience. Though it has only been about 3-4 years since we opened, those few years
made a huge difference in terms of visibility of this genre and we jumped on board at the right time.
Me: What sort of conservation issues do you deal with in regards to the art in the rooms?
Rich: The key here is that you live the art. You're in a room and you're inside the painting. This requires a lot of faith in human nature. These days it's easy to walk around and assume that everyone is a jerk. But, it is actually very rare that anything bad happens to the rooms in the hotel. Most people here are really very careful about treating the work respectfully-- our guests so far have been really good about that.
Me: Well, when I first heard of the hotel and the concept I was intrigued and curious about what "living" in a work of art entailed. Could I touch the walls? Is it okay if steam from the shower gets out of the bathroom?
Rich: You can touch the walls. We really want people to immerse themselves in the art. We trust that our guests will take care to allow future guests the same unique experience.
Me: Do artists get to choose the furnishings that come with the rooms?
Rich: To some extent. Because it's a hotel we change some of our furninshings as we see fit. We try to work with the artists if we need change something they have customized.
Sometimes if we need to renovate or remove a wall, we contact the artist to let them know and invite them to come back and work on or touch up the new surface.
Me: Do you ever paint over the rooms?
Rich: Rotating the rooms themselves...we've only done that a couple of times and its a really slow process. And it's hard to choose a room to rotate because I may not like it, but it's a room the critics love or is really popular with the guests. Right now we're thinking of bringing some artists into the hallways--so hopefully that will be coming up.
Me: How often do you rotate the work?
Rich: Our work typically rotates in the gallery space. We put up new shows every couple months. The number of shows is more flexible and unknown as we tailor our openings with the availability of new work and we try and coincide the openings with other events in the community.
Me: I take the Muni down Bush St. in the morning and noticed the Shepard Fairey poster on the side of the building.
Rich: Yeah that was kind of a random thing. He actually created a poster transparency thing for the hotel windows, but since our building has been designated by the city as a historical property, we could not put up anything that would alter the building's appearance above the first level. It's in situations like that where the issue of artistic expression and free speech seem to clash with city regulations. But Shepard Fairey's a great guy and we love working with him.
Me: Which room is your favorite?
Joe Ramirez: I like the Shepard Fairey room.
Rich: I like a couple of them actually. A hotel room doesn't have to be "likable" in a general, "pottery barn" way. It is a place you're going to be for a few days or maybe a little more. You should use that time to experiment with a completely different environment than where you might normally live. If you're staying here, you're here for an experience--for example in the Buff Monster room there's these cartoon nipples on the wall and the words "lick it up, B--ch." It's certainly not my dream house but it will be my space for the next 48 hours, and if i'm going to be out in San Francisco and going out at night--this room is a cool place to come back to and hang out in afterwards. We have a room by Brian Ermanski that literally looks like a New York subway. There's stuff scrawled all over the walls and some of it actually had to be censored...it was far worse than "lick it up b--ch." It's a room that doesn't fit the mainstream but strikes a chord with many art lovers and critics."
Me:I'm glad you guys decided to keep the room because what I like about your particular venue is that you are open to new artists and styles that may or may not be palatable to
some people.
Rich: Yeah...we've received some very strong, negative reactions from unsuspecting guests in the past. This isn't where you go if you don't want to be exposed to anything that is at all urban. There was this one guy who was very upset because the gazes of a pair of women in this painting looked too provocative. What's interesting is that we've had stuff up with partial nudity before...and it didn't have any of that. It was merely the fact that it looked like they loved each other or something that set this guy off...he was very upset about that. (Marisa's note: Clearly then, this guest seemed to have forgotten that he is in fact, in San Francisco). There was a guy walking down the street who was upset about the Shepard Fairey poster because he thought we were promoting Islamic culture or something because of the woman's headdress! Our rooms are provocative and we're not trying to cater to everyone. We're not a chain, we're certainly not corporate, and we like to be a little edgy.
Me: You guys really have a sort of integrity in terms of a commitment to the art and ideas represented by the artists that is not so much dictated by conformation and I respect that.
Rich: We actually ran into an issue with Louis Vuitton. We have a room by Tim Gaskin and he does a lot of pop-inspired stuff that uses the Louis Vuittion logo with an image of Madonna. So they sent us a letter asking us to remove the painting from our wall. Anyway, we had an attorney get involved and basically since we had the painting up for artistic reasons and not commercially it was okay. If we were to advertise the room as the "Louis Vuitton room," then that would be illegal. We sent a letter back to Louis Vuitton saying that we're not going to pay them--and yeah we were shaking and everything but nothing came of it. We never heard from them again.
Me: How do you think the art transforms the hotel space?
Rich: I think it's cool because when you travel, you want a full experience of the place you are visiting. Of course you also want a comfy bed and a place to rest. Most of the artists here are from the bay area or if they aren't...for example if they are from New York or LA or something...they are inspired by what they see in San Francisco. The rooms here reflect the local art scene and culture and allow you to literally live in it. It gets you more into the spirit of being in San Francisco. It's different from the thousands of hotels that are exactly the same no matter where you travel.
Thanks again to Rich Singer and Joe Ramirez for taking the time to answer my questions and for inviting me to view some of the rooms and gallery spaces!
Hotel des Arts is located at 447 Bush St.
*Reserve painted rooms by booking directly with Hotel des Arts!
Reservations: 1.415.956.3232 or 1.800.956.4322
or by email: reservations@sfhoteldesarts.com
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