Rhema Jordan Labbe was the inaugural artist in residence at Eaton DC’s six-month artist residency program in 2018. Labbe, who studied painting and creative writing at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, before moving to New York City, returned to the D.C. area after the death of her father. When the D.C. native came back, she felt like an outsider.
“I wasn’t really tapped into the visual arts community and still find myself a bit on the outskirts,” Labbe says. “I was talking about how I was interested in getting back into painting. And the opportunity was presented to me after a few conversations to be the inaugural resident artist at Eaton.”
Labbe says the residency gave her a dedicated time and space to work on and show her art while also building a community. “There was a level of connection to the space that I had, which I think is very grounding for me as an artist,” she says. Since her time at Eaton ended, Labbe has started her own alternative art space in an effort to build community. Originally offered as a pop-up series in 2020 during the pandemic, her Roots & Rivers gathering place continues to offer an experiential art studio space and creative home to bring people together.
There’s nothing new about alternative art spaces. Some of New York’s most iconic art spaces, such as the Kitchen in Chelsea, Artists Space in SoHo, and Franklin Furnace in Tribeca—built by entrepreneurs in the golden age of art in the 1970s—were once considered alternative, as in alternative to a typical gallery or museum. Designed with artists in mind, these locations still stand out as the avant-garde and allow emerging artists greater opportunities to experiment with their work. But these spaces also build community by allowing artists to become known by a wider public.
But what happens when for-profit businesses such as hotels offer themselves up as alternative art spaces? In cities across the country, hotels have contributed to the gentrification that has displaced residents and small businesses, including artist studios and galleries. So, concerns about whether artists are being used in an effort to lure community support for already profitable businesses are well-founded.
In the current moment, local boutique hotels such as Eaton DC, the Viceroy, citizenM, and Hotel Zena are trying to differentiate themselves from the Holiday Inns of the Boomer generation while also setting themselves apart from their Airbnb competitors by offering an olive branch to the community: giving local artists exhibition space.
Art lovers may have historically searched for hotels within walking distance of museums; today they have the option of staying at a hotel that houses its own art gallery. In Manhattan, Forbes, Resident Magazine, and Time Out have enthusiastically reported on Time Square’s Knickerbocker Hotel’s collaboration with the Brooklyn-based, Black-owned Bishop Gallery. The hotel’s inaugural exhibition, Young, Gifted, and Icoknick at St. Cloud, opened in February 2023 in celebration of Black History Month.
D.C. curator Jason Bowers, who comes to D.C. from California by way of New York, has established himself as a creator of pop-up exhibits inside restaurants, bars, and hotels throughout the city. He found that he possessed the skills necessary to manage projects and their logistics through his work as a government employee. So, in 2016 when local artist Kelly Towles was on the brink of starting D.C. Walls, a 10-day annual festival that showcases mural artists from around the world, Bowers volunteered to be Towles’ number two in planning the event.
“I’ve always been fascinated by [art],” Bowers tells City Paper. “I’ve always been specifically a fan of street art, murals, and public art.”
Although Bowers is passionate about murals, he has since taken his curatorial expertise to hotel lobbies, putting together numerous exhibits including those that are permanent as well as rotating shows. In defense of hotel lobby art exhibits, Bowers says, “Not only are you creating a space to showcase local artists, and a space for local citizens to come and view local art, but you’re also creating a space where people who are not from D.C. can be exposed to local art.”
In February, Bowers curated Kinfolk, an exhibition of paintings by Howard alumni Charles Jean-Pierre and Kendall Robinson for the Viceroy. The Logan Circle hotel enlisted Bowers after seeing his curatorial work in 2020 for Hotel Zena’s lobby. For Zena, located along Northwest’s 14th Street Corridor, Bowers assembled D.C.-based feminists to showcase their work, including a mural titled “Warrior Guardians” by MISS CHELOVE for the building’s exterior. Inside, Andrea Sheehan x Julie Coyle Art Associates crafted a 40-foot-tall pointillism portrait of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made of colored tampons.
Before Kinfolk, Jean-Pierre and Bowers had not worked together, but Bowers was aware of the artist’s reputation as a well-regarded personality in the local art scene. Bowers was in talks with the Viceroy about a possible gallery space when the hotel purchased the three-dimensional piece “Compass to the Cosmos” by Jean-Pierre and Robinson for their permanent collection. A collaboration between the four parties only made sense—though it was Jean-Pierre, a well-known community builder, who suggested teaming up with Robinson.
Jean-Pierre arrived in D.C. to attend Howard University for a Master of Fine Arts and sociology in 2006. His art has received both local and international acclaim. He was invited to the White House under President Barack Obama to represent artists in the District, and this summer he has been selected by the US State Department Art in The Embassies Program to exhibit and lecture at the University of Malawi. He too speaks highly of the opportunities offered to local artists when hotels create gallery space.
“I think [showing at hotels] is an opportunity to connect with the community, but also the people who stay in those hotels are tourists, international people, too,” says Jean-Pierre. “It’s giving the local economy an entryway to the tourist market.”
The Viceroy is actually Jean-Pierre’s second hotel collaboration; he’s previously worked with citizenM Hotel, which has two D.C. locations in Capitol Hill and NOMA.
“So many hotels have now moved beyond just being a traditional hotel,” Bowers tells City Paper, referencing the various social and community events Eaton has hosted since opening in downtown D.C. in 2014. Since opening, Katherine Lo, the hotel and coworking space’s founder, has continuously insisted that the intention for Eaton is to be less of a hotel and more of a social justice space. Last October, Eaton’s Global Head of Purpose Sheldon Scott told DCist that the hotel is special because its intended audience is artists.
The Eaton Workshop, the hotel’s arts-based initiative built by and for creatives, is described as more than just a place to stay but as a cultural hub. With a screening room, vinyl-only DJ sets, artists’ studios, and spaces for exhibitions, the Workshop aims to create belonging and nurture creativity.
“Eaton is also uniquely able to serve as a conduit for travelers to not only rest, but also access cultural and issue-based programs and engage in intelligent and thought-provoking discussions that enrich their experience in the city,” Scott says. “It also creates an avenue for creatives to showcase their work to the public, and for the community to discover and engage with artists who they may not encounter otherwise.”
Thomas James, the executive director of the Last Resort Artist Retreat, a leisure residency for Black creatives in Baltimore, also emphasizes the importance of alternative art spaces in hotels. “I mean, look at D.C., a lot of the galleries have been priced out.”
No stranger to the local art scene, James is a DMV native who helped the Phillips Collection open its Southeast satellite campus, the Arc, in 2018. He’s also curated a show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Arlington and at several galleries in the D.C. area. He goes on to say, “I also understand the larger implications, which is that some of the spaces that are now doing these sorts of shows, they may or may not have been part of the gentrification process.”
The viability of hotel lobbies as alternative art spaces remains novel and the businesses currently remain committed to the communities and creating opportunities for D.C. artists. For now, the partnership creates an accessible platform for local artists to introduce their work to people from all over the world. In spaces like the Viceroy, the art is also available for purchase.
“Supporting artists is very important to citizenM. We have collaborated with Art Universities and recent graduates, but also very established artists,” Floor Haverkamp, the art collection manager at citizenM, tells City Paper. “I think the mix makes the overall art collection we built over the years very interesting.” She concludes: “I believe it’s a great way to support the art scene in general.”
Hotels doubling as art galleries is a trend seen around the world. In the past, hotel art only needed to match the furniture. These days, hotels are rivaling art galleries in their ability to acquire and house a large number of works. What that means for the future remains unclear: “If [hotels] feel they’re getting a return on their investment, then I think it’ll continue,” James says. “But if not, I think it might just be a trend…. time will tell.”