Hotel and Motel Art - an essay

B&B art- San Stephano B&B, Verona, Italy 2012

 

     If you travel much you become an expert in motel and hotel art.
     Awaking in a strange place to the vision of a nondescript print of a tree in an anonymous forest means that you are on vacation or at least not at home. It indicates you will not need to make the bed or clean the toilet. You can get up and drive away.
     This alone should make us appreciate motel art. To see it is to be away from home in both a real and symbolic way. It has a place in art history even if that place is remote.
     Likely you have not thought much about this specific art form. This is exactly the point.
     In various places around the United States, and most other countries, lodging art is colorful, bold and less than memorable. I don’t remember the art in accommodations in a good many major U.S. cities. This inability to remember brings back fond travel memories.
     There must be special art classes for motel and hotel designers in nondescript watercolor. The majority of pieces are vague, neo-impressionism with a hint of bland. None of it is fit for the Guggenheim, but it works. It is designed to neither add nor detract from your lodging experience and it doesn’t.
      On the other hand, if your room has no art, it is obviously barren. There must be something on the wall even if you cannot remember what it was.
      The only picture in a motel I remember is a calendar tacked up in a sparse and warn motor court in Beatty, California. It was the only lodging available on a road trip in 1980. It was a 1972 calendar from Shell Oil and would have been forgotten if it had some cheap print on the wall.
      During some research, I asked the head maintenance person at a major hotel chain if any of the art is ever stolen. While most of it is attached to the walls with screws to keep it level, it could be easily slipped into a suitcase.
      The long experienced maintenance person looked at me as if I had asked the ultimate in stupid questions. His response was two fold: why would anyone want it, and why would it even cross my mind?
      There are some questions that come to mind and no matter how stupid need to be addressed.
In a hotel, while looking at art that you will not remember, your mind tends to drift