Once a swish railway hotel, then a raucous local dive, and now a proud holder of a Michelin Key, The Royal Hotel is held together by layers of history. This weekend, it takes on a new role, as both the site and muse of County Arts’ new exhibition: Hotel Confidential. 

Curated by artists Stacey Sproule and Christina Zeidler, the show breaks barriers, inviting local and international artists working across disciplines to step outside the traditional white walled art gallery and into the many  imaginary lives of a functional hotel.

While contemplating how to mark the 40th anniversary of County Arts, Ms. Sproule, who serves as the organization’s Programs Director, was inspired by Ms. Zeidler’s work as Creative Director of the Gladstone Hotel. Her signature show, Come Up to My Room, was an immersive art and design exhibition in the Gladstone’s guest rooms that ran for 17 years.

Hotels are steeped in fascinating paradoxes: 
at once anonymous and authentic,
open and exclusive, private and public, 
permanent and transient.
Artists, audiences, and guests keep returning to them.

Hotel Confidential is both a nod to this past exhibition and a signal of what County Arts has in store for the future: bringing the thriving local arts scene to national and international audiences. 

“At anniversaries it’s nice to do something that’s future looking,” Ms. Sproule says.

She notes the specific context of the Royal is central to the framing of the exhibition. “There’s a heavy emphasis on craft and design here but it’s very welcoming,” notes Ms. Zeidler.

The idea of hospitality, Ms. Sproule adds, also extends to the presentation of art. “Who is welcome and how do we make them welcome?” she asks. 

Collaborative Dialogue

“A huge theme of this whole show is collaboration and dialogue,” says Ms. Zeidler. Several of the show’s 16 artists were asked to work in pairs to create one of Hotel Confidential’s showcase rooms.

Half of the artist’s featured are County-based. “This show is an opportunity to connect artists in the County to artists from outside,” she says. “It’s also important for audiences to experience this dialogue.”

Works include photography, textiles, furniture, architectural intervention, paper, and more.

The spirit of collaboration extends to interaction between artists, audience members, and experimental mediums.

Nanotopia, a collaboration between Andrei Gravelle and Tosca Teran, explores the relationship between humans and the biological processes of fungi, lichens, seaweed, and mosses. These bio-responsive systems create electrical activity that produces multi-sensory experiences.

In another room, contemporary dancer Christopher House conceived his artwork as a collaboration with the hotel room he’ll live in for three days, exploring its archetypal position through fantasy and play.

Artists will be present in their studios/hotel rooms for the weekend and available to participate in conversation as visitors take in their work.

Film Hotel

Hotel Confidential also offered Zeidler and Sproule an opportunity to draw on the legendary hotels of cinema. 

Ms. Zeidler explains that the “lobby rule,” from the 1932 film Grand Hotel, charts the journey from the communal space of the lobby to the privacy of a hotel room and back again. Once a character re-enters the lobby, “they have come back out changed, the story resolved.”

The Royal’s Barlow Room serves as the “lobby” of Hotel Confidential, where visitors gather before beginning their journeys through the stairwells and into the guest rooms, perhaps experiencing a perspectival shift. 

Art and Artists

Room 101
Key Codes by Sarah Cooper and Rob Southcott of Shelter Bay with Margaret Pryde
Room 102
Multispecies Rest by Bay Woodyard, Clara Polanco Talavera, and Nanotopia’s Tosca Terán and Andrei Gravelle
Room 103
Dainesha Nugent-Palache, curated by Joséphine Denis and presented by BAND Gallery
Room 104
Christopher House

“Both Stacey and I have film in our own practices,” says Ms. Zeidler. “Cinema takes you right into an abstract way of thinking.”

With the idea of cinematic narrative introduced, the functioning hotel suddenly meets the allegorical one. 

“In Barton Fink, the hotel starts to mirror what’s going on in his psyche,” Ms. Zeidler says. “In Grand Budapest Hotel, there’s a layer of time and people in one space.”

Both of these films, along with Grand Hotel, Lost in Translation, and Mystery Train were shared with the artists as a way of generating conversation and inspiration. 

“Many of them started to pick up on the theme of overlapping narrative and history,” Ms. Zeidler notes.

Art and Artists

Hallways
Glimpses, Traces and Near Misses by LeuWebb Projects’ Christine Leu and Alan Webb
Barlow Room
Do Not Disturb/Come On In by Spark Box Studio’s Chrissy Poitras and Kyle Topping, and Joel Gregorio of State Goods
Radio
Hotel Confidential by Chip Yarwood

Radio Confidential

Hotel Confidential constructs a total, immersive world, and reaches right into the airwaves with Radio Confidential, created by Chip Yarwood. Sponsored by Tivoli, Radio Confidential is a real radio station within the walls of the Royal. It will play the full 20 hours of the exhibition. 

“It’s a way to connect the show through time,” Ms. Zeidler notes. “It will act as a sort of abstract catalogue for the show.” Radio Confidential will feature interviews with the artists, music selected by them, and a few cheeky nods to County FM.

Radios are placed throughout the hotel in the upstairs rooms, the library, and the Barlow Room. Headsets are available for audience members to wander with. 

There is plenty to discover. Hotels are steeped in fascinating paradoxes — anonymity and authenticity, openness and exclusivity, private and public, permanence and transience — and artists, audiences, and guests keep returning to them.

“It’s that feeling of an intimate space that is also a collective space,” Ms. Sproule says. “You have this energetic residue of folks who have used that space. It’s not just yours but for that time it is yours.”

“It’s not your home, it’s not your work, it’s not a public space like a cafe or something. It’s another thing,” Ms. Zeidler adds.

Tickets are free, and while registration is encouraged at the County Arts website, walk-ins are welcome. The exhibition runs from April 18th to 19th.

“Not everyone goes up into the rooms at The Royal,” Ms. Zeidler says, “but this weekend you can.”