Le Royal Monceau Raffles' façade on 37 Avenue Hoche.
This year one selected YIA artist was Brooklyn resident Michael DeLucia, a former assistant of Jeff Koons, who studied at the Royal College of Art, London and the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. His abstract sculptures explore the appropriation, fetishization and exploitation of mass produced objects. Other artists selected include Vincent Beaurin, Charlotte Charbonnel, Aurélie Pétrel, and Parisian art cooperative Societe Realiste.
When it opened in autumn 2010, Le Royal Monceau Raffles Paris—designed by Philippe Starck—developed an extensive art and culture program, including a bookstore dedicated to contemporary art (La Librairie des Arts), a private cinema (Katara Cinema), a contemporary art gallery, a private collection of over 300 works of art and a contemporary Arts Concierge who knows where the best galleries and street art in her city can be found.
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Located at the heart of the hotel, Le Bar Long, is a high, long, narrow and luminous bar. Designed by Philippe Starck, the structure is broken up by large white linen curtains, artwork, a fantastic array of lamps and chandeliers and the repetitive face-to-face layout between patrons and a bartender moving behind a bar breaks up the conventional look of a bar.
If that weren't enough the hotel's art gallery space—which has previously exhibited works from Basquiat, Dennis Hopper and Michael Somoroff—will showcase work by Mexican born artist Gabriel Orozco until the end of June 2012. His floating "The Roiseaux" will be exhibited in the lobby and is composed of two large mobiles, lithely constructed hybrids of bamboo branches and feathers.
But the swaddling at Raffles isn’t just about art. Beds feature ivory leather headboard, and oversized beveled mirrors conceal the TVs amping up the modernist Art Deco feel. The hotel’s white monochromatic 1,500 square meter Clarins spa opened in 2012 and includes a 23-meter long pool, the longest in any Paris hotel. The hotel’s two restaurants the French La Cuisine and Italian Il Carpaccio each racked up a Michelin star after opening.
This spring, Paris is host to several arty events including Paris Museum Night on May 19 when all the city’s museums stay open until 1am, and Belleville Artists’ Open House from May 24-27. (33-1-42-99-88-77; doubles from $1,021).
