Five-star Contemporary Art

A monumental Trojan Horse by Bruno Peinado rises up at the entrance of LVMH's hotel Le Cheval Blanc, ensconced in the Courchevel resort. The ski slope side is dominated by Xavier Veilhan's Bear, while works by Andreas Gursky and Murakami can be seen inside. In Paris, the Peninsula hotel, owned by the eponymous Hong Kong group, welcomes visitors beneath a hanging crystal installation created by the Czech Lasvit workshops, with 800 leaves evoking the plane trees in Avenue Kleber. Further examples are found in other luxury hotels promoting the French lifestyle, which began to move into the contemporary art niche in the 2000s, capitalising on its growing popularity. "They have got in tune with the tastes of a new, young, wealthy, international clientele," says Nina Rodrigues-Ely, director of the contemporary art Observatory. And this aesthetic "extra", marking their identity, is now an argument designed to set them a cut above their competitors…  When a property owner is an art lover, everything happens naturally. In the 1990s, trailblazer Bernard Redolfi handed…