Between Trade Fairs and Exhibitions: The Phenomenon of Hotel Art Fairs

The phenomenon of hotel „art fairs” is a balance between a private showing and a public event. In this form the art market literally enters the living space, leaves the white walls of an art gallery behind to be laid out on beds, desks and in the hallways instead. This effects in the blurring of boundaries between an aesthetic experience and an act of consumption: art seizes to be only viewed, and begins to be tested in everyday life conditions. It’s not so much a form of trad as it is a sign of a change in the way of thinking about the relationship between the object, the space and the consumer.

In the fall of 2025 Hotel Warszawa, housed in the historic edifice of the old Prudential, has become the scene of an extraordinary artistic event for the fourth time. This year’s edition of Hotel Warszawa Art Fair commenced on Friday with a closed show for the press and VIP guests, and during the weekend the event was opened for general public. Viewers were able to visit a number of appartaments turned into mini-galleries since noon till the evening. It’s the fourth esition of contemporary art fair set in an unusual space of hotel interiors. The event took place as a result of partnership between artists and gallery owners with the Likus Hotels & Restaurants Group.

This form, although surprising in its modernity and innovative approach, had it’s beginnings in 1994. The idea was born in New York as „Gramercy International Art Fair” and the event took place in thr rooms of the Gramercy Park Hotel. In principal it was supposed to be an alternative to large, expensive fairs. It was a more low-key model of presentation, in which art galleries organized exhibitions in hotel rooms, often including „installation art” style setups. The initiative in time became the famed „Armory Show”, one of the most important artistic events in the world today. Hotel Warszawa Art Fair had its debut in 2022, marking the first event of this kind in Poland. 

The place itslef is not accidental, as Hotel Warszawa has always been an icon of modernity and design. Designed in the 1930s by Marcin Weinfeld as art deco, incorporating steel construction by Stefan Brfyła and Wenczesław Poniż, it became one of the first architecture artworks on metropolitan scale in Poland. Even back then it was viewed as a manifdid not esto of modern Warsaw, an object of photographs, paintings and featured in contemporary art press. During World War II the building, at that time still under the name Prudential, partially collapsed due to bombings, it’s steel farme however survived. After the rebuild in 1950’s the facility started functioning as Hotel Warszawa. It became the meeting place of Warsaw elite: artists, writers, filmmakers. During the PRL period the hotel took on a function of a space for social gatherings – the restaurant and cafe were favoured by the art community and the hotel itself became associated with gatherings of the colorful community of the capital’s artists and intellectuals. Despite it’s undeniable connection to the art world, the hotel did not contain a documented permanent collection of artwork. 

„Art fair” initiatives held in hotels are a way of additional highliting the ubiquitous connections between design and commercial art. In the wellness and popularised luxury era, people desire to dwell in beautiful, elegantly decorated spaces that contribute to their wellbeing. Contemporary hotel interiors are ofted designed by artists, designers and architects and boutique hotels, distinctly smaller buildings of high standard offering more personalized customer service, are incrisingly popular. It is there that art often takes centre stage. Some networks, such as 21c Museum Hotels in the USA, the Dolder Grand in Zurich or La Royal Monceau in Paris, built their own contemporary art collections. Works of art adorn the rooms and lobby, creating the atmosphere of a gallery accesible around the clock. Hotels additionaly comission site-specific artwork: murals and installations. By those means not only do they support artists and create unique identity but also become patrons of art. The relationship between hotels and art is much deeper than one might think at face value. It’s not only a matter of renting space, rather a symbiosis of culture and hospitality. Hotel space guarantees privacy. The viewer isn’t a part of an anonymous crowd in a big fair, he becomes a guest invited to a quasi-private space. That facilitates the dialogue between the collector, the artist and the gallery. 

In case of Hotel Warszawa Art Fair 2025 the relationship between art and hotel is joined by patners, creating rooms on the base of their own art branding. The Champagne house Ruinart with its long tradition of art invetsement, became one of the main partners. As part of the program, they took over the room that on September 5 became the studio of Zosia Dzierżawska, an illustrator. As a unique experience, the viewers were able to observe the artist work, combining the Ruinar image with live creation and designing the audience’s experience. During her performance, Dzierżawska illustrated „second skin case” – an eco-conscious champagne etui, used as canvas. The brand’s worldwide work highlights the premise of Ruinart being a patron of the artists as well as champagne manufacturer. Every year the manufacturer comissions a resident artist to create an interpretation of the brand (among others David Shrigley, Erwin Olaf, Jeppe Hein). Ruinart is a contributor to other art fairs, such as Art Basel or TEFAF. Another alcohol industry brand closely connected to art world that decided to support this year’s Warsaw fair is Hennessy. Whilst designing the packaging and bottles, the company collaborates with contemporary musicians and visual artists, such as NAS, Jackson Wang or Loewe fashion house. Hennessy had more of a tasting rather than a gallery-style presence at HWAF 2025. Nontheless, designing coherent liquor tasting space fits into the strategy of joining an experience with visual brand identity. Motoring world partner of this year’s fair was Range Rover, focusing on a strong bond with design and contemporary art for past few years. They sponsored events like London Design Festivaland collaborated with Frieze Art Fair. Being a premium brand, they highlight the idea of „the art of luxury motoring”, or a car being perceived as commercial sculpture. In Warsaw, the Range Rover room of HWAF was a minimalistic aestetic arrangement with a prominent naturalistic accent of „bathroom/forrest”, integral in their „quiet luxury” philosophy. It proved Range Rover’s brand willingness to be a part of pop-culture and naturallifestyle companion. During this year’s fair the technologicant giant, Lenovo, combined art and latest technology. The brand presented two installations, collectively named project „Flow”: combination of nature, technology and introspection. The installations showed innovative approach to technology, which can become not only functional tool, but also a medium creating experience, emotion and new perspective, supporting recognition of the usually unseen. „Aura Room”is an installation enabling the viewer to digitally scan their own „auras”. Surrounded by natural crystals, viewers had thair individual auras visualised on screen through colour, shape and pulsation. Inspiration for this project were Lenovo products in Aura Edition line, such as Lenovo Yoga slim 7i and ThinkPad X9 – devised designed to personalize the user’s experience. A second zone was located in Lenovo & Motorola showroom, for the duration of fair changed into a green forrest (similarli to Range Rover project) with live plants, grass and minerals. Ambient music and sounds of nature creaated an atmosphere conducive to free breathing, rest and calm in the heart of the city. 

Beauty industry was represented by La Mer cosmetics brand that built a space reffering back to their skin care philosophy. The brand sponsors ocean-themed exhibitions of fotography and visual arts. Each of the present brand terats art as means of building prestige and emotional connection to their recepients through the guarantee of experiencing art in connection to the use of each product.  

Hotel art fairs are a meeting of two worlds, interpenetrating and enhancing each other. For hotels cooperation with art becomes not only a marketing strategy, but also a way of building identity. Hospitality space, usually associated mainly with overnite stay, becomes a cultural institution. Hallways and lobby seize to be a neutral background and begin to fill up with the energy of paintings, sculptures and installations. Hotel becomes a place talked about. A place that attracts not only travellers, but also collectors, curators and journalists. Art becomes a hallmark, something that makes us remember the hotel as not just a building, but rather an experience. For galleries and artists hotels are a fresh, intimate space, far from the coldness of institutional showrooms. Artwork seen in a room or a hallway gains a different dimention, filters through the rythm of everyday life and becomes closer to the recepient. This contecst brings about conversations, personal  relationships and moreover facilitates decisions to purchase, because art presented in natural surroundings speaks to the collector’s imagination and heart. Thus collaboration with hotels becomes for the artist a chance to self promote as well as to create a real dialogue with the recepient. 

Nevertheless, hotel art fairs are sorrounded by enthusiasm and scepticism alike. They raise a question of intention: does the space that is supposed to support the intimate encounter with artwork not reduce the artwok itself to serve only as a part of decor, a luxury addition, an elegant accesory. The critics state that in such environment art risks the loss of autonomy, becoming only the result of 

shallow commercialization and not the medium of meaningfulness. Are hotel art fairs really a pillar of art creation, or are they simply trying to enhance the hotels’ image and attract premium customers? The most stern opinions view artwork as a prop on the set of hotel business – an element of decor facilitating construction of the location’s prestige. The wide, diverse audience of such events bringsdoubt. On the one hand, hotel art fairs create openness and accesibility, on the other they pose a threat of supperficial experiences. In the social media era, contact with art increasingly becomes moments captured in photographs, being were it counts, instead of a real contemplation of art’s meaning. Thus there is a possibility of hotel art fairs promoting „insta-friendly experience” above deeper engagement and thought. 

It’s noteable to remember that the tendency to bring art beyond the walls of galleries is currently an important trend. Exibitions in hotels, boutiques or even public spaces are a part of a bigger movement that tries to break the tradition of elitism in cultural institutions and bring artwork into everyday life. From that perspective, hotel art fairs are seen not as a threat, but rather a play on a new form of reception – an attempt to find spaces, where art meets different contexts and audiences. The tension between emancypation and commercionalization becomes unavoidable nowadays and that might be the reason for wide discussion. 

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