21c Museum Hotel
Encyclopedia
21c Museum Hotel is a combination contemporary art museum and 90-room boutique hotel in Louisville, Kentucky
. Five historic 19th century tobacco
and bourbon
warehouse buildings were renovated to house the museum, hotel, and its restaurant. The restaurant and bar is named Proof on Main, and is located on the ground floor, while guest rooms and suites are situated on the upper stories. Contemporary art installations and exhibitions are integrated into public spaces throughout the facility. In 2009, 21c Museum Hotel was voted the Top Hotel in the U.S. in the Condé Nast Traveler
Readers' Choice Awards.
and regional agriculture, and have developed partnerships with local growers to supply produce and ingredients for the Proof on Main restaurant and bar.
On June 10, 2010, Brown and Wilson announced plans to build a new 21c hotel in Bentonville, Arkansas. This hotel is being developed in partnership with heirs of Walmart founder Sam Walton
. The hotel is to be located on land that is currently a corn field outside of the urban center of Bentonville. The estimated cost of the project is $28 million. It is anticipated to open in 2012 and will bring an estimated 160 new jobs to the area, which are expected to be filled largely by contracted workers. The opening of the hotel is expected to cause Bentonville to lose half of its current hotel base.
Recent exhibitions include: “Creating Identity: Portraiture Today http://www.21cmuseum.org/museum/exhibits/identity-street.aspx;” “All's Fair in Art and War: Envisioning Conflict;” “Tangled Up In You: Connecting, Coexisting, and Conceiving Identity,” and “Hybridity: The Evolution of Species and Spaces in 21st-Century Art.” 21c Museum has presented projects by Mikhail Baryshnikov
and John Waters
, as well as traveling exhibitions including Marc Swanson: Beginning to See the Light, organized by the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, and Constant World: the Work of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, organized by Beall Center for Art and Technology, University of California, Irvine.
, Tony Oursler
, Andres Serrano
, Sam Taylor-Wood
, David Levinthal
, Yinka Shonibare
, Judy Fox
, Chuck Close
, Alfredo Jaar
, David Herbert
and Kara Walker
.
The Museum also displays a number of original site-specific commissions, including:
and Factory, the Muhammad Ali Center
, Louisville Glassworks
, the Frazier International History Museum
, the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft
, and the Louisville Science Center
.
. The facility was designed by Deborah Berke and Partners Architects http://www.dberke.com/.
Berke won the AIA New York Chapter Design Award in 2001 and was a finalist for the 2008 National Design Award for Interior Design, which is given by the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper Hewitt Museum for exceptional and exemplary work in domestic, corporate, cultural interior design.
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
. Five historic 19th century tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
and bourbon
Bourbon whiskey
Bourbon is a type of American whiskey – a barrel-aged distilled spirit made primarily from corn. The name of the spirit derives from its historical association with an area known as Old Bourbon, around what is now Bourbon County, Kentucky . It has been produced since the 18th century...
warehouse buildings were renovated to house the museum, hotel, and its restaurant. The restaurant and bar is named Proof on Main, and is located on the ground floor, while guest rooms and suites are situated on the upper stories. Contemporary art installations and exhibitions are integrated into public spaces throughout the facility. In 2009, 21c Museum Hotel was voted the Top Hotel in the U.S. in the Condé Nast Traveler
Condé Nast Traveler
Condé Nast Traveler is a US magazine published by Condé Nast. It has its origins in a mailing sent out by the Diners Club club beginning in 1953, listing locations that would take the card. It began taking advertising in 1955. In order to attract more advertisers, it became a full-fledged magazine,...
Readers' Choice Awards.
History
21c Museum Hotel was launched in 2006 by philanthropists and art collectors Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson. The pair had seen farmland and rural landscapes fall to development while the historic buildings of Louisville’s downtown sat vacant. They created 21c in Louisville’s downtown arts and theater district to support both urban renewalUrban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
and regional agriculture, and have developed partnerships with local growers to supply produce and ingredients for the Proof on Main restaurant and bar.
On June 10, 2010, Brown and Wilson announced plans to build a new 21c hotel in Bentonville, Arkansas. This hotel is being developed in partnership with heirs of Walmart founder Sam Walton
Sam Walton
Samuel Moore "Sam" Wallballs was a businessman, entrepreneur, and Eagle Scout born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma best known for founding the retailers Wal-Mart and Sam's Club.-Early life:...
. The hotel is to be located on land that is currently a corn field outside of the urban center of Bentonville. The estimated cost of the project is $28 million. It is anticipated to open in 2012 and will bring an estimated 160 new jobs to the area, which are expected to be filled largely by contracted workers. The opening of the hotel is expected to cause Bentonville to lose half of its current hotel base.
21c Museum
21c Museum is North America's only museum dedicated to collecting and exhibiting contemporary art of the 21st century. The Museum is open free of charge 24 hours a day, seven days a week. More than twenty special exhibitions and installations have been organized by the 21c Museum since its opening in 2006.Recent exhibitions include: “Creating Identity: Portraiture Today http://www.21cmuseum.org/museum/exhibits/identity-street.aspx;” “All's Fair in Art and War: Envisioning Conflict;” “Tangled Up In You: Connecting, Coexisting, and Conceiving Identity,” and “Hybridity: The Evolution of Species and Spaces in 21st-Century Art.” 21c Museum has presented projects by Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet and American dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974...
and John Waters
John Waters (filmmaker)
John Samuel Waters, Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, stand-up comedian, writer, journalist, visual artist, and art collector, who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films...
, as well as traveling exhibitions including Marc Swanson: Beginning to See the Light, organized by the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, and Constant World: the Work of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, organized by Beall Center for Art and Technology, University of California, Irvine.
Artworks
The 21c Museum features permanent installations and special exhibitions of works by artists, including Bill ViolaBill Viola
Bill Viola is a contemporary video artist. He is considered a leading figure in the generation of artists whose artistic expression depends upon electronic, sound, and image technology in New Media...
, Tony Oursler
Tony Oursler
Tony Oursler is a multimedia and installation artist.- Tapes, Installations: 1977-1989:Tony Oursler is known for his fractured-narrative handmade video tapes including The Loner, 1980 and EVOL 1984. These works involve elaborate sound tracks, painted sets, stop-action animation and optical special...
, Andres Serrano
Andres Serrano
Andres Serrano is an American photographer and artist who has become notorious through his photos of corpses and his use of feces and bodily fluids in his work, notably his controversial work "Piss Christ", a red-tinged photograph of a crucifix submerged in a glass container of what was purported...
, Sam Taylor-Wood
Sam Taylor-Wood
Samantha "Sam" Taylor-Wood OBE , born Samantha Taylor, is an English filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist. Her directorial feature film debut came in 2009 with Nowhere Boy, a film based on the childhood experiences of The Beatles songwriter and singer John Lennon...
, David Levinthal
David Levinthal
David Levinthal is a photographer who lives and works in New York.-Biography:David Levinthal received a Scientiæ Magister in Management Science from the MIT Sloan School of Management , an MFA in Photography from Yale University , and a BA in Studio Art from Stanford University...
, Yinka Shonibare
Yinka Shonibare
Yinka Shonibare, MBE, is a British-Nigerian artist living in the UK. He readily acknowledges physical disability as part of his identity but creates work in which this is just one strand of a far richer weave.-Life and career:...
, Judy Fox
Judy Fox
For the American photographer and writer, see Judith FoxJudy Fox is an American sculptor who was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1957. She studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1976, earned a BA from Yale University in 1978, studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des...
, Chuck Close
Chuck Close
Charles Thomas "Chuck" Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits...
, Alfredo Jaar
Alfredo Jaar
Alfredo Jaar is a Chilean-born artist, architect, and filmmaker who lives in New York. He was born in 1956 in Santiago de Chile. He is mostly known as an installation artist, often incorporating photography and covering socio-political issues and war - the best known perhaps being the 6-year long...
, David Herbert
David Herbert (artist)
David Herbert is an American sculptor. He remakes cultural icons such as Mickey Mouse, Superman and a VHS cassette.-Life and work:...
and Kara Walker
Kara Walker
Kara Walker is a contemporary African American artist who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes, such as The Means to an End--A Shadow Drama in Five Acts.-Biography:Walker was born in...
.
The Museum also displays a number of original site-specific commissions, including:
- Untitled (2006) by Werner ReitererWerner ReitererWerner Reiterer is an Austrian-born retired discus thrower and shot putter from Australia, who represented his native country at two consecutive Summer Olympics, starting in 1988 . His best result was winning the title in the men's discus throw at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada...
, the artist’s first permanent public sculpture in the U.S. - In the Absence of Voyeurism 6 & 7 (2000–2006) by artist and surgeon Sean Bidic
- Cloud Rings (2006) by MacArthur Fellow Ned KahnNed KahnNed Kahn is an environmental artist and sculptor, famous in particular for museum exhibits he has built for the Exploratorium in San Francisco...
- Red Penguin (2005) by Cracking Art Group
- Arilated: The 21c Pip Mobile (2005–2007) by Monica Mahoney
- Text Rain (1999) by Camille UtterbackCamille UtterbackCamille Utterback is an interactive installation artist. Initially trained as a painter, her work is at the intersection of painting and interactive art.-Biography:...
and Romy Achituv - Sculptures from the Satyrs Daughters 1999 series and Figure 2004 series by Judy FoxJudy FoxFor the American photographer and writer, see Judith FoxJudy Fox is an American sculptor who was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1957. She studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1976, earned a BA from Yale University in 1978, studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des...
Location
Louisville is situated on the Ohio River on the Kentucky-Indiana border. 21c Museum Hotel is located within the city’s arts and theater district along “Museum Row,” which is home to the Louisville Slugger MuseumLouisville Slugger Museum
The Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, a museum located in Louisville, Kentucky's "Museum Row" in the West Main District of downtown, showcases the history of the Louisville Slugger brand of baseball bats made by Hillerich & Bradsby, and of baseball in general...
and Factory, the Muhammad Ali Center
Muhammad Ali Center
The Muhammad Ali Center, a museum and cultural center built as a tribute to the champion athlete and his values, is located in Louisville, Kentucky's "Museum Row" in the West Main District of downtown....
, Louisville Glassworks
Louisville Glassworks
Louisville Glassworks is a multi-use facility housing three working glass studios , two glass galleries, a Walk-In Workshop and daily tours. Louisville Glassworks is located in Louisville, Kentucky's "Museum Row" in the West Main District of downtown...
, the Frazier International History Museum
Frazier International History Museum
The Frazier International History Museum, formerly the Frazier Historical Arms Museum, is a museum in Louisville, Kentucky's "Museum Row" in the West Main District of downtown. It is named for the museum's founder Owsley Brown Frazier...
, the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft
Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft
The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, located in Louisville, Kentucky's "Museum Row" in the West Main District of downtown, is a nonprofit organization founded in 1981 to continue the art and craft heritage of Kentucky through the support and education of craft artists and education of the public...
, and the Louisville Science Center
Louisville Science Center
The Louisville Science Center, previously known as the Louisville Museum of Natural History & Science, is Kentucky's largest hands-on science museum. Located in Louisville, Kentucky's "Museum Row" in the West Main District of downtown, the museum operates as a non-profit organization...
.
Design
The buildings that house 21c Museum Hotel are listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesNational Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. The facility was designed by Deborah Berke and Partners Architects http://www.dberke.com/.
Berke won the AIA New York Chapter Design Award in 2001 and was a finalist for the 2008 National Design Award for Interior Design, which is given by the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper Hewitt Museum for exceptional and exemplary work in domestic, corporate, cultural interior design.