Fine Art Turns Up the Heat at Manhattan's Hudson Hotel

Art Business News, March, 2001 by Vanessa Silberman

Mondino's humorous photographs proved to be a perfect fit, while Ingo Maurer's comically large dome lamp spilling purple light onto the billiard table completes the picture. "We never take ourselves too seriously," chuckled Schrager.

But he is serious about spreading his vision of "Hotel as Lifestyle" across the world. And this can only mean good things for the artistic community. Currently, his company is in the process of developing three hotels in New York--the Empire and Barbizon hotels, as well as Astor Place in Greenwich Village--designed by world-renowned architects Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & de Meuron (their first project in New York)--as well as the Clift in San Francisco, Santa Barbara's Miramar, the National in Miami Beach and a hotel, apartment and urban entertainment complex in South America.

Until then, guests and cityfolk alike can receive plenty of visual stimulation at the Hudson Hotel. Plans for a rotating art exhibit are "in the works." And if there isn't enough eye candy at the bar, one can always look up and enjoy Clemente's spectacular mural.