An Art Exhibition … for Free
The Art Hotel Garden Collection – in the rooms, stairways, salons, garden and pool you are surrounded by art.
Stunning the guest is our speciality. For a holiday with a difference in the Italian Riviera, come to the perfect location for an exhibition of ceramics and contemporary art works, displayed in the salons, swimming pool, indoor and outdoor common areas and in the Art Hotel Garden’s rooms.
Room 212 is a real tribute to art – the Caminati Room – stayed in by Aurelio Caminati himself, with two walls entirely painted by him during his long stay, likewise the desktop in Room 402, intimate and touching tributes to the Master. With our art collection, we collaborate with the project MuDA – Diffused Museum of Albisola, which is a stop-off point on tour itineraries and a location for cultural and scientific events. Take a preview and browse through the anecdotes of the hotel …
Art History … starts here
Since opening in 1994, the artists and their works have begun to inhabit the Art Hotel Garden, in a pattern of patronage that takes into account the social and economic value of contemporary art. This aesthetic vision has created a permanent exhibition in the indoor and outdoor areas of the Hotel.
♥ Aurelio Caminati
He turned up at the hotel at the end of the 90s; at that time he drove a sporty Lupo and was wearing square tortoiseshell glasses giving a zany tone to his stylish clothing. The artist hesitated a moment at the entrance, with his care-free attitude: he needed somewhere to have lunch and maybe a few hours rest before returning to work in the Mazzotti factory. Until that time we knew Caminati only by reputation, but that first bizarre meeting led to a long term friendship and collaboration.
One of the reasons that drew the artist to our Hotel was the presence on a permanent basis of Milena Milani, who Caminati literally worshipped. From short stays, the Genoese artist soon moved on to longer stays, and his presence became taken for granted. We well remember our long talks exclusively in the Genoese dialect.
On one occasion in the year 2000, while my wife and I were travelling, the artist asked our daughters, Roberta and Paola, for permission to personalise the room which he usually occupied: number 212. Enrico and Luccia Boggi, Art Hotel Garden owners.
We will never forget his flirtatious encounters with Milena Milani, who used to enjoy reminiscing with Caminati over the glory years of Albisola, encouraging him but leaving him hanging on. Meanwhile, Caminati’s paintings and ceramics proliferated throughout the hotel.
♥ Milena Milani
Among its many famous guests, the Hotel Garden was the residence of this many-faceted and eclectic artist. A key figure of Italian culture and an important character of Albissola’s great artistic avant-garde movement between the ’50s and ’60s. Writer and painter, she chose the Hotel Garden to spend a large part of her life.
She immediately established a strong relationship with all of us and in particular with me. Paola Boggi, Art Hotel Garden owner.
A testimony of her presence remains in the glazed ceramic panel that welcomes guests in the garden and other works displayed on the walls of the Art Hotel Garden. The very important Milena Milani Foundation, even after her death in the summer of 2013, continues to preserve and endorse high quality art.
The Art Hotel Garden Collection
When you arrive at the hotel, an extraordinary and precious art collection is waiting for you, a selection of works made by neo-avant-garde international artists of the latter part of the 20th century:
- Nouveau Réalisme – Mimmo Rotella, Arman, Christo
- Arte Povera – Kounellis
- International artists works – Asger Jorn, Sergio Dangelo, Serge Vandercam, Julio Le Parc, Alfredo Sosabravo and Carlos Carlè
Amidst this collection you will recognize the treasured traces of the local artists who then established themselves at national and international level: Eliseo Salino, Sandro Lorenzini, Gianni Celano Giannici and Giorgio Moiso. There are rich testimonies of Italian artists: Ignazio Moncada, Aurelio Caminati, Ernesto Treccani, Stefano Pizzi and Mario Schifano.
A Garden where Art blossoms
The Hotel offers you a unforgettable experience out of doors, in the garden and by the swimming pool surrounded by the bright and delicate colours of large ceramic panels specially made for the Hotel. The works are by Milena Milani, Michela Savaia, Ignazio Moncada, Gianni Celano Giannici, Giovanni Tinti and Aurelio Caminati.
There is also a highly original panel at the pool and two large-scale works on the external walls of the Hotel all created by Sergio Dangelo.
Contemporary Masterpieces
Arman / Nice France1928 – New York USA 2005
A leading figure in the avant-garde movement Nouveau Réalisme. Assembles an accumulation of objects and materials from everyday life to create three-dimensional artistic works that, beyond the aesthetics of the object, the repetition and the colour, express a critical reflection on the way we perceive reality.
- Composizione, 1995 mixed media on wood, cm 24×18
Asger Jorn / Vejrum, Denmark, 1914 – Aarhus 1973
Danish artist, protagonist of experimental artistic research. He worked in Denmark and Paris (where in 1948 he was among the founders of the Cobra group), but in 1954 he moved to Albissola Marina, establishing himself internationally and in the ’60s becoming one of the highest-rated European artists and the most appreciated by critics. His primitivist art, brutal and informal, was created at the S. Giorgio Ceramics laboratory and at his casa-giardino which he transformed into a composite art work, which has now become a museum.
- Senza Titolo, 1966 oil and acrylic, cm 30×20
Mimmo Rotella / Catanzaro 1918 – Milan 2006
He is one of the most famous italian artists with an international reputation, part of the Nouveau Réalisme movement born in 1960. His ideas are expressed through a highly personal use of the décollage technique, which distinguishes itself from collage by subsequently removing layers of paper and other materials. Particularly famous for décollage on advertising posters which, once removed from the reality of their urban context and having been processed by the artist, deliver disorienting visual and linguistic messages.
- Orizzonti Perduti, 1990 décollage, cm 40×50
