ART AT THE LOREN
Art at The Loren
4 Introduction Stephen King 6 About the Art Collection Penny Liebman Aaron and Kathleen Landy 8 Art at The Loren at Lady Bird Lake Austin 52 Art at The Loren at Pink Beach Bermuda 108 Art in Other Places 200 Index
Introduction Stephen King Founder C12 Capital, Sardis Developments, Loren Hotels 4
On the occasion of opening The Loren at Lady Bird Lake, our second Loren hotel, and hopefully one in a long enjoyable future of exquisite properties, we have created this book about the Art at The Loren and the contemporary art collection from which it derives. We started the collection in 2009 for the C12 Capital offices in New York City to create an atmosphere that would be uplifting and promote innovation, open-mindedness, and creativity. In particular we wanted to remind ourselves that “what is great” can be an extremely hard question to answer. Along our curating journey, our understanding and appreciation of the art grew as we learned about the discussions amongst artists, collectors, galleries, and museums — including dialogues about art history, the formal aspects of an artwork, and embedded science, environment, and cultural identity to name a few. The challenge living artists face trying to stay relevant to the discussions of their peers while adding something new to the art cannons resonated with us. We always looked for the new and for excellence, and we were especially drawn to themes relating to science, architecture, and nature. It is our hope that the art is enjoyed by our guests and our partners, and that the themes and ideas that thread through the art collection overlap seamlessly with the ethos of The Loren’s architectural style. Our buildings are intended to be in harmony with the environment and natural surroundings, and thereby to enhance the wonderful and stimulating guest experience.
When we were first asked to start a contemporary art collection for Stephen King and the C12 Capital offices in 2009, the significance of the name C12 —carbon12-- was taken as a thematic starting point. Themes of science, strength, stability, and abundance immediately stood out and became a foundation for the collection with works by Matthew Ritchie, Ernesto Neto, Cornelia Parker, and Adam McEwen. The very first artwork acquired for the collection--Matthew Ritchie’s Weep In Light--has now migrated to The Loren at Lady Bird Lake, where it holds a prominent place in the lobby. The painting features overlapping and intertwining hexagonal structures that represent carbon’s constant flow and ability to multiply. Ritchie’s interest in carbon stems from his fascination with science--especially with chaos theory. Indeed, this painting’s dynamic landscape represents a complex network of information systems in coexistence. The collection would soon acquire other scientifically-themed artworks, including an Ernesto Neto sculpture featuring intertwining hexagonal steel components, a pure graphite work by Adam McEwen, and deconstructed artworks by Cornelia Parker and Christopher Williams. Vik Muniz’s photograph, now hanging in The Loren At Pink Beach, from his Pictures of Junk series — a series embodying the idea of making something beautiful and meaningful out of junk and trash — inspired several later acquisitions dealing with themes of materiality, recycling, nature and climate change. Richard Long’s painting, also currently hanging in The Loren At Pink Beach is made from dirt collected during one of his famous Land Art walks. Jane Wilbraham’s watercolor depicts debris she collected on a walk through London’s Sydenham Hill neighborhood. Sam Lewitt’s wall sculpture is made from discarded computer parts and MetroCards. And Tony Feher’s sculpture consists of found jars that he filled with colored marbles that refract and reflect any light that hits them. About the Art Collection Penny Liebman Aaron Kathleen Landy Art Advisors, Curators 6
These thematic threads run throughout the art hanging in The Loren at Pink Beach and now The Loren at Lady Bird Lake. As we continue to collect and place new works in the Loren hotels, these themes continue to inform our choices and overlap with the environmental ethos of the Loren hotel brand. The Loren at Lady Bird Lake features artworks whose symbiosis of color, natural light, and architecture reflect the hotel’s organic integration with its exterior setting. In the lobby, Sarah Braman’s repurposed chairs with glass cube reacts to the changing exterior light throughout the day, providing ever-transforming networks of reflections and refractions. In the restaurant, Olafur Eliasson’s dynamic color wheels offer a nod to Austin’s Ellsworth Kelly Chapel, which is famed for its melding of architecture and color with the intense Austin light that pours inside. In the hotel’s guest rooms, Karl Blossfeldt’s classic photos of plants that look like ornamental ironworks demonstrate the principle that essential forms are reproduced in nature, art, and architecture. Indeed, nature, art, and architecture come together in an organic symbiosis at The Loren at Lady Bird Lake.
THE LOREN AT LADY BIRD LAKE
10 Matthew Ritchie Weep in Light 2009 Oil and marker on canvas 90×901⁄8 ×15⁄8 in. © Matthew Ritchie 2022. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Tyler Campbell Wriston.
12 Olafur Eliasson The colour circle series: Part 2 2008 Color photogravure in 9 panels, each panel in 3 sheets. 681⁄4 ×71in. Courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/ Los Angeles This triptych is part of Olafur Eliasson’s ongoing investigation of color phenomena and color theory. Each reflects the full spectrum of the primary colors: red, yellow, blue. We selected this artwork for The Loren at Lady Bird Lake as a nod to the very special Ellsworth Kelly Chapel, famed for its melding of architecture and color with the intense Austin light that pours inside.
This sculpture by Sarah Braman was included in the artist’s solo exhibition at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Greycliff–an extension of the Albight Knox Gallery, Buffalo. One of the reasons we chose this artwork for The Loren’s collection is for its relationship to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. The interaction between natural, found elements (for Braman discarded chairs and wood) and humanmade materials and especially, the dialogue between light and glass are springboards for both artists.Wright combined glass, wood, and stone taken directly from sites to create the intricate details of the organic style of architecture that became his legacy. The themes and ideas of science, architecture and nature thread thru the art at The Loren at Lady Bird Lake and overlap seamlessly with the ethos of the building’s architectural style– a building in harmony with the environment and natural surroundings. 14 Sarah Braman Paula 2018 Wood, glass and chair 43×23¾×24¼ in. © the artist, courtesy Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York. Photo by Christopher Burke Studio, New York
16 Untitled (mirror/shard), 2022 is a15-second looping animation tokenized as an NFT. Simultaneously hypnotic and dynamic, the piece is a portal into a glitching datascape. Rooted in the technological abstraction of computers and algorithms, Untitled is a glimpse inside the ghost of the machine. Both organic and mechanical, -the glitchscape animates and reanimates the frame in perpetuity. Layers of information are flattened and stacked creating an immersive digital landscape. —Chris Dorland Chris Dorland Untitled (mirror\shard) 2022 Single channel loop; 3840×1536 4k (5:2) NFT Courtesy the artist.
Michael Joo’s artworks blur the boundaries between art and science, artifice and nature. His steel sculpture Imperfected is a digitally scanned “portrait” of a quartz crystal he “mined” at a tourist attraction in upstate New York. The planar panels of the sculpture were created by a computer program that used digital numbers to map out the assembling of the panels. Instead of omitting the digital numbers, Joo laser etched them into the panels in order to highlight how their non-sequential lyricism contrasts with the perfect geometry of the assembled crystalline panels. 18 Michael Joo Imperfected (Imago #5) 2010 Stainless steel 36 h.×42 l. ×38d. in. Courtesy the artist
20 Michael Joo Godseye 2 2010 Cast urethane, steel, and acrylic enamel 41×36×28 in. Courtesy the artist
22 Mathias Kessler Ilulissat B001, Greenland 2007 C-print 27×70 in. 001-X Greenland 2007 C-print 33×70 in. pages 24–25 Ilulissat F007, Greenland 2007 C-print 40×212 in. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Heike Strelow, Frankfurt, Germany.
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26 Diane Tuft Entropy 2022 Color pigment print 80×53 in.
28 Rachel Eulena Williams Out of Technicolor 2021 Acrylic on canvas, cotton rope, and wood 421⁄2 ×421⁄4 ×21⁄4 in. Courtesy Canada, New York, and the artist. Image by Joe DeNardo.
30 Jana Schröder PERLASYNTHIC L8 2022 Acrylic on canvas 94½×78¾ in. Courtesy Nino Mier Gallery and the Artist
32 Liam Gillick Production Progression 2011 Powder coated aluminum 6×391⁄2 ×6 in. © Liam Gillick Courtesy the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York.
34 Stephanie Duprie Routh In the Depths of my Heart Bull Shoals Lake, Arkansas, June 2020 Visual Poems on Paper New York, New York, November, 2021 Spectacles New York, New York, November 2021 Eyes: Pick a Song Hamilton, Bermuda, July 2020 Apple of a Million I’s New York, New York, November 2021 Self-Portrait, of Sorts San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, October 2019 C-prints Each 24×36 in. Courtesy the artist.
36 Andy Coolquitt Candelabra 2022 Found metal pipes, acrylic paint, candle 89×34×12 in. Courtesy the artist A nice, soft place for meeting people (23b) 2023 Fabric, cotton stuffing, wood 18×52×18 in. Courtesy the artist and McLennon Pen Co.,Austin Ding Dong (GBSRB) 2019 Found metal pipes, sockets, bulbs, electrical wire 19×17.5×16 Courtesy the artist.
38 Vik Muniz Cobb’s Barn and Distant Houses, after Hopper (Pictures of Magazines 2) 2012 C-prints 40×52 in. Artwork © Vik Muniz, courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
40 Karl Blossfeldt Wunder In Der Natur (Wonder In Nature) 1942 120 photogravures 8×10in. ea. Courtesy vintagesmith.com San Francisco, CA
42 Seth Price Untitled 2005 Vacuum formed high impact polystyrene 49×39½ in. Courtesy the artist and Petzel, New York.
44 Carrie Moyer Ringers 2012 Acrylic, graphite on canvas 40×28 in. Image courtesy Canada, New York
46 Richard Galpin Observation I (Highline) 2009 Peeled photograph 40×35 in.