Stay

Artists: Simon Carter, Giovanna Maria Casetta, Emily Cole, Richard Dedominici, Mark Dixon, Tess Glanville, Susan Gunn, Leo Hillier, Lyndall Phelps, Robert Sheratt, Chris Wood
Location: Great Eastern Hotel, London

Representing different disciplines and working in a variety of media, 11 artists selected for Escalator Visual Arts in 2004/05 were invited to create temporary site-specific work for the Great Eastern Hotel situated next to Liverpool Street Station during July 2005.

Inspired by the hotel’s impressive architectural spaces, rich history and the secret life of the hotel guest, the show entitled 'Stay', offered a provocative mix of work from painting through video to live performance.

Flock wallpaper in pastel shades commissioned by artist Lyndall Phelps softened and feminised the impressive rotunda – a circular set of balconies that cut through the heart of the hotel. In the atrium, Chris Wood used water filled wine glasses as lenses that captured and projected images on to a screen. A guest bedroom became a nuclear fall-out shelter (modeled on ‘Protect and Survive’ guidelines from the 1980’s) with the artist, Richard Dedomenici, occupying a refuge made from doors and mattresses and surviving on economy baked beans and rationed water. An installation by Giovanna Maria Casetta enticed visitors to look through a bedroom spy hole, where they were seduced by a stranger in a baby-doll nightie. A shaggy dog meandered through the hotel looking for food, sex and sleep in an installation by Tess Glanville, whilst Mark Dixon examined history, futility and power with a golden model train on a circular track in the hotel’s hidden Greek Temple. Painters Emily Cole and Simon Carter documented journeys and locations that drew on the hotel’s links to the East of England, whilst large abstract canvases by Susan Gunn enhanced the formality and atmosphere of the hotel’s lobby. Robert Sherratt, another painter, used a unique and painstaking technique to represent the chaotic rock ‘n’ roll cliché of the wrecked hotel bedroom. Illustrator Leo Hillier imagined the hotel inhabited by eccentric, colourful fish people in a modern-day fairytale about loneliness, making friends and sowing seeds.

Curated by Cherry Smyth in collaboration with Commissions East, ‘Stay’ is built on a series of exhibitions and art interventions at the Great Eastern Hotel. ‘Stay’ was the hotel’s most ambitious project to date, having the greatest number of temporary commissions created specifically for its public spaces and private rooms.

'Stay' formed part of Escalator Visual Arts 2004/5 funded by Arts Council England, East and led by Commissions East in partnership with the region's visual arts organisations and galleries. 'Stay' was delivered in partnership with the Great Eastern Hotel, London and supported by 'one' - the train operator for London and the East of England.