Boutique Art – Modern Hotel.

Hi all! We’re still darting about the U S of A… California, Arizona, Illinois, Kentucky, and on and on and on. As before, there continues to be few opps for tourism (well, apart from Arizona, already mentioned), while opps for work in various shapes and sizes are plentiful. Along the way we’ve been coming across assorted anomalisms and atypicalness, invariably snapped by D.Z. before you’ve time to say photogenic (I think he’s moonlighting as a travel photographer, you know. In fact I’m sure of it!) Here’s one such oddity. This one in the Windy City: And our ongoing chance-discoveries of modern kunst on our travels took another rich turn when we found ourselves in Louisville, Kentucky, at the 21C Museum Hotel. What a place! Never seen a hotel like it on all my extensive travels. Basically, as the name suggests, it’s a hotel and a museum rolled into one, chock-full with modern art paintings and sculptures. Turns out the hotel was completely rebuilt to accommodate all the unusual exhibits, many of which are hardly small. You won’t find dinosaurs or stuffed animals here; only that fairly far-out thing they call modern art – and lots of it. There are various exhibits outside the hot-eum too. Here, David – in all his Michelangelic splendor. Only in gold: At the entrance guests are welcomed by blue meerkat, tortoise, rabbit and snail sculptures: And over the mus-tel’s front doors – three red penguins!: There are more red penguins dotted about the exterior and interior of the museum hotel – we counted 20 in all. The biggest were in the bar. To scare heavy drinkers into imbibing less? To give them a surreal Alice-in-Wonderland fear? :) In the lobby there’s a bizarre avant-garde metal installation. What it symbolizes or what it means (if anything) I didn’t quite get, but it sure looks unusual and imposing: There are pictures, placards, photos, constructions everywhere you look here. Staring at some of them is a genuinely pleasant experience. Having got the keys to our rooms, we headed towards the lift – where we were met with this sight!: … Yes – that’s us! By the way, the dots are actually letters which fall down the screen Cascade-style! And in the lift itself we found this ingenious lighting installation: And leaving the lift we came upon this work (I’m sure the other floors also have extraordinary exhibits): Next to exhibits you generally find information about the works of art and the artists who created them. Sometimes you don’t realize at first that something is actually a museum exhibit! Of course, you can’t go around touching and prodding all the exhibits as a child might. However, you can buy miniature versions of some of them in the hotel’s store. Er, but what would I do with a red penguin? I’m told there’s a spa here set in stunning surroundings. But no spa for me; it’s ZZZs for me – as tomorrow we’ve an early rise to talk about business and then visit our favorite US partner, Geek Squad City. Well, that’s your lot for today folks. Good night and God bless… Wind forward a day – and here we are at Miami Beach! We’re off for a dip in the ocean: