Preferred Hotels & Resort's Newest Luxury Hotel Presents 'Modern Masters' in the Mountains

Presenting The Alpina Gstaad Contemporary Art Collection

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. May 28, 2015

GSTAAD, Switzerland. - May 28, 2015. Visitors to the Swiss Alpine village of Gstaad do not necessarily expect to see world-class contemporary art on the walls of a hotel. Nor do many small luxury hotels have large collections by contemporary artists. But then, you can always find the unexpected at The Alpina Gstaad.

Sixty-three works by 36 artists including Dan Colen, Tracey Emin, Jana Euler, Alex Israel, Terence Koh, Barbara Kruger Henrik Olesen, General Idea and The Bruce High Quality Foundation, among many others, line the walls of the public rooms and corridors throughout The Alpina Gstaad.

• Behind the reception desk - a large asymmetrical slab of polished wood hewn from a single fir tree - is a Bosco Soldi diptych of mixed media on cloth with colors and texture that recall rich fertile soil.
• Tracey Emin's pink neon "And I Said I Love You" sign is over the DJ area in the Lounge.
• The Princess by The Bruce High Quality Foundation, a silkscreen, paint on canvas of Infanta Margarita from Velásquez's Las Meninas hangs near Restaurant Sommet.
• Henrik Olesen's Leeres Plexiglasbild (Empty Perspex Picture) poses a set of perhaps unanswerable questions, and thereby engages the viewer. Gluing objects from his personal life, the picture plane is an associative autobiography. Ungluing them, the blank space becomes projection and fantasy.
• In her work, conceptual artist Barbara Krueger addresses cultural constructions of power, identity and sexuality. In the black and white photograph, We are all that money can buy, an elegant hand covers a woman's face and upper torso.
• Huge Swiss cow and mountain goat "horns" by Ann Carrington, especially commissioned for The Alpina Gstaad, hang like trophies from a hunt in the Restaurant. Fashioned from old bone and horn knives and forks, the artist named the works after the region's mountain goats: Alpine, Saanan, Toggenburg and Oberhashi.

Nachson Mimran, the son of Jean Claude Mimran, the hotel's majority shareholder, has been the driving force behind the collection.

"Growing up art was always a part of my identity and I began collecting when I was 15 years old," said Nachson Mimran. "It was not until the hotel was half completed that we thought about creating a cultural ethos for The Alpina Gstaad," he explained.

Judging from its exterior, The Alpina Gstaad could almost be another Swiss chalet in traditional Alpine style as it was crafted from authentic local materials, weathered timber from centuries-old farmhouses and stone from the surrounding Alps. But stepping inside, guests immediately feel a creative energy and a contemporary vibe. Furniture is by B&B Italia, Lindley and Gervasoni, lighting by Pinto Paris and floor lamps by Lorenzo Tondelli.

HBA designers have referenced many of the local customs and crafts from hand-painted wooden doors for the ballrooms to intricate embroidery on the armchairs. Quartz, mined from Alpine crevasses, has been transformed into bases for lamps, decanters and beer taps. The region's traditional scissor art has been used as a design element. Glass pendant lights resemble classic Swiss cowbells. Rugs and throws are fashioned from Saanenland goat hair and columns are sheathed in saddle leather.

And The Alpina Gstaad has traditional art as well. Hanging from the ceiling over the main staircase is a Late Baroque painting (circa 1780) measuring 28 feet by 17 feet. Antique wooden chests and hand-painted cupboards decorate several suites.

Open since December 2012, The Alpina Gstaad has made Conde Nast Traveler's "Hot List," Travel + Leisure's "It List" and The Robb Report's "Best of the Best" for 2013. Schweizer SonntagsZeitung (Swiss Sunday Newspaper) named The Alpina Gstaad one of the “Top Ten” best holiday hotels in Switzerland, and Gault Millau Swiss anointed The Alpina Gstaad “Hotel of the Year 2013.” The hotel was a finalist in Virtuoso's "Best of the Best" awards for excellence in design and won 2013 European Design Hotel of the Year from the European Hotel Design Awards. In November 2013, The Alpina Gstaad was awarded its first Michelin star. In January 2014, Andrew Harper named the hotel one of six Grand Award winners in Europe. For more information about The Alpina Gstaad, please visit www.thealpinagstaad.ch.

About The Alpina Gstaad

The Alpina Gstaad is set on five acres in Oberbort, the exclusive hilltop area of the village, which is in Saanenland in the heart of the Bernese Alps. Part of a CHF300 million-luxury development that includes private chalets and apartments. The Alpina Gstaad has three restaurants: the first European outpost of MEGU, the renowned Japanese restaurant; a traditional Swiss stübli, and the Michelin-star Restaurant Sommet serving contemporary cuisine. The luxury hotel has a bar and lounge, wine-tasting room, private cinema, cigar lounge, a ballroom and several boardrooms. The 56 spacious rooms and suites - all with balconies - range from 333 square feet to 4,305 square feet. The Alpina Gstaad is a member of Virtuoso and is part of the Legend Collection of Preferred Hotels and Resorts.

Media Contact:
Meredith Pillon
[email protected]
212-289-1627