BEAUTY AT EVERY TURN
ANCIENT FORMS AND MODERN CULTURAL COMMENTARY INTERSECT IN THE LONG-PLANNED DECORATIVE AND FINE ART COLLECTION OF ENCORE BOSTON HARBOR.
Story, form and cultural commentary weave together the long-planned decorative and fine art collection of Encore Boston Harbor.
Apolished convex sculpture, Torus, greets guests arriving at Encore Boston Harbor. It is captivating simply on a decorative level (as the many people taking selfies in its mirrored surface will attest), but it is also in a way emblematic of the collection of hundreds of art pieces in and around the resort. The piece, a seven-foot-high convex knife-edge round mirror with a kind of central porthole, takes in the whole of the harbor, the gardens, and even the Boston cityscape beyond it—resembling a time-lapse video as you watch its surface. In fact, sculptor David Harber’s work is inspired by the transient beauty of light, landscape, and water, and many of his monumental works are created in reflective surfaces to underscore the recurring patterns of the passage of time. is a sculpture that is firmly rooted in place, and,
Torus
in seeing yourself in the surface, it is also about you—the viewer, the guest—experiencing the art and the resort.
Dig a bit deeper into Harber’s work, and it becomes even more compelling for the story behind it. The artist is in fact a direct descendant of one of Elizabethan England’s most renowned sundial craftsmen, and his own dials, crafted in Oxfordshire, England, near a Bronze Age fort, have been created for the private collections of Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and many others. His sculptures draw on his family’s heritage working with an ancient form, making it thoroughly contemporary.
Turn toward the harbor from Torus, and you will see the portraits of three women, as totemic as the moai of Easter Island, gazing toward the Boston skyline and back to the resort. The three heroically scaled, 20-foot women by Jaume Plensa are at once ancient and contemporary. “There’s a watchfulness about these works,” says Michele Quinn, of Las Vegas-based MCQ Fine Art, who advised on the resort’s fine art and design collection. “They embody the gaze and are both about future thought and memory.”
Ancient forms are the basis of Viola Frey’s modern works. Frey, a figurative artist who worked in California in the mid- to late-20th century, took the amphora—a form that dates to the Neolithic Period— and used it as the basis of monumental tableaus that juxtapose fantastical figures and the banalities of everyday modern life. Approach the immense IV, which appears as an ancient vase
Amphora
at the base of the curving escalators in the lobby, and you will see the totems of her visual lexicon running over its surface: power-suited men, winged horses, spoon people, eyes, windows, faces, dolls.
The fun and delight of this collection are in its immediate impact: larger-than-life figures, saturated colors—and what appears to be its somewhat thematically freewheeling quality. After all, within a short walk of each other, you will find the monumental mirrored stainless steel by Jeff Koons, flexing his biceps as he pops open a can Popeye
"THERE IS A DEEPLY INFORMED ART HISTORICAL THREAD THAT GOES THROUGH THIS COLLECTION." —MICHELE QUINN
"THE CONTEMPORARY WORKS LOOK BACK AT HISTORY, AND THE CENTURIES-OLD WORKS INFORM THE FUTURE." —MICHELE QUINN
"WE RELY ON ART TO CREATE AN EXPERIENCE OF DRAMA, ROMANCE, AND JOY WITHIN THE ENVIRONMENTS THAT WE CREATE." —ROGER THOMAS
of spinach; the massive by modernist Charles Arnoldi,
Billion 1 which uses tree branches and resin to create the muscular work that virtually explodes from the wall behind the reception desk; and an astonishing collection of decorative art spanning centuries and regions of Europe and Asia. For instance, a pair of 19th-century, neoclassical terra-cotta sculptures sits within a stone’s throw of 1930s polychrome Art Deco panels from the Mayflower Hotel in Akron, Ohio, and a series of contemporary ceramic floral sculptures by Joan Bankemper. Inspired by 18th-century Rocaille porcelain, their surfaces teem with a mix of charming flora and fauna (as well as teacups, creamers, and other wacky detritus of modern life rendered in delicate porcelain). There is method to this exuberance.
“There is a deeply informed art historical thread that goes through this collection,” says Quinn. “The Plensa sculptures take the most ancient of forms, the bust, and amplify it. Frey’s
juxtaposes contemporary figures on a Bronze Age
Amphora IV form. The contemporary works look back at history, and the centuries-old works inform us of the form, shape, and style that future generations will mold into a new context.” Even the most contemporary works take inspiration from story. It all adds up to a collection that, like Plensa’s women, is in constant conversation with itself.
Installing the art is one of the first orders of business in any Wynn resort, and this collection was five years in the making, says Executive Vice President of Wynn Design & Development Roger Thomas, who has built collections of rare art and design in Wynn Las Vegas, Wynn Macau, and Wynn Palace. “We believe that our guests should encounter extraordinary examples of creativity and beauty at every turn,” he says. Rather than finish the hotel and then “accessorize” it with decorative art, Thomas says, the art and the hotel are planned together. “We rely on important art to create an experience of drama, romance, and joy within environments that we create to frame the objects in a memorable way. It’s simply integral to our process.”
Popeye, the long-awaited Jeff Koons sculpture relocated from Las Vegas to its new, fitting home on the waterfront, is one of the marquee art pieces in the collection. The larger-than-life stainless steel sailor man is as mesmerizing as a giant toy (in fact, his inspiration was a toy belonging to Koons’ child), and it is virtually impossible not to have a visceral reaction of joy as candy colors play over his surface. But also does
Popeye a secondary, important job of bridging our familiar cultural vocabulary with art, constantly recalling and reexamining the relationship of kitsch to virtuosity. Perhaps if there is one Rosetta Stone through which this collection can be thoroughly deciphered, it is Popeye, who invites you to sidle up to him with the joy of a child—and understand him later.