At the Atelier Sul Mare hotel in Sicily, imagination gives way to reality - and guests don’t just walk around works of art, they take showers and make love in them.

Located on the waterfront of Castel di Tusa, a sleepy fishing village half way between the cities of Palermo and Messina, the hotel has 16 rooms like no other: Each one is designed by a different contemporary artist.

Feelings of awe, anxiety, tenderness, rebellion or spiritual contemplation may accompany clients during their stay over - much of it depending on which room they decide to book.

In Fabrizio Plessi’s ‘’The Room of the Denied Sea’’ (1992), for instance, adventure reigns supreme as six television monitors show looped images of crashing waves. The idea is to encourage guests to search for the real view of the Sicilian sea, which is concealed behind any one of the room’s wooden panels.

In ‘’The Nest’’ (1991) by Paolo Icaro, guests will find a large, cozy, heart–shaped bed enveloped by a white coiling wall and covered in bird feathers.

Inhibitions find no place in Michele Canzoneri’s ‘’Shadow Line’’ (1992), where the bed has the room’s toilet on its left and the bath tub on its right, next to a large window overlooking the bay.

LIVING INSIDE ART

Those who dislike confined spaces will not appreciate Raul Ruiz’s well–shaped Tower of Sigismond (1993), while philistines might want to stay away from Dreams among ‘’Signs’’ (1994), a study of language by former left-wing terrorist Renato Curcio.

And while ‘’The Prophet’s Room’’ (1995), a tribute to the late Italian intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini, is a popular favourite, it is difficult not to fall in love with the Room of Painting (1996) by Pietro Dorazio and Graziano Marini which, just like in Kurosawa’s masterpiece, gives guests the feeling of stepping into a giant abstract painting.

‘’We wanted to give people a feeling of lightness and lightheartedness,’’ Marini said.

One of the hotel’s latest additions is ‘’Lunaria’’ by Umberto Leone and Ute Pyka, a room with a moon–shaped bed and olive tree ‘’curtains’’.

‘’I was attracted by the idea of merging art with architecture and making people live inside a work of art, rather than have them experience it passively,’’ Frankurt-born Pyka told dpa.

Everything about the hotel is impregnated with art - even its lifts bear graffiti inviting guests to ‘’switch off the television sets and switch on their conscience.’’

Art rooms cost per person per night, breakfast included, and guests are encouraged to try out different rooms during their stay.

ARTISTIC OR BIZARRE?

The hotel attracts an international, unconventional and jovial crowd. At its center is Antonio Presti, the hotel’s owner and creator.

Presti is a largerthan–life character who, after inherited a vast family fortune, decided that - in his words - ‘’the excessive value attributed to money contrasted with his own philosophy of life’’.

The 50-year-old former cement factory owner–turned-philanthropist is today a well-known figure known for his campaigns in favour of ‘’beauty’’, whether physical or spiritual.

Among his most bizarre initiatives was flying a batch of poets to Sicily some years ago, who were then asked to recite their poetry to commuters travelling on Sicilian trains.

In 1982, Presti set up a cultural association that would eventually create Fiumara d’Arte - an open air collection of modern art sculptures distributed around a dried up river bed.

One of the most impressive is Window on the Sea, a humungous cement structure on a beach that frames the deep blue Sicilian sky and sea. The artwork, which measures 18 metres in heigth and as many meters wide, was to cost Presti a trial and eventual acquittal on charges of unauthorised building.

Today, the restored Window is considered a protected building and a popular tourist attraction.

The fact that his initiatives are not always appreciated by local residents has never deterred Presti.

‘’They consider me a fool. But if donating beauty means being a fool, then I’ll happily be one,’’ Presti said during recent celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of his Fiumara d’Arte.

Source

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 19th, 2007 at 4:18 am and is filed under Hotel, Travel. Tags: AIG AOL curtains Hotel Rooms Italia Travel Village . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.