The third season of MITICO, Belmond’s annual artistic series with Galleria Continua, focuses on a single artist for the first time; internationally acclaimed contemporary artist, Daniel Buren. The global series launched in February at Mount Nelson, A Belmond Hotel, Cape Town, and will be followed by further commissions at Belmond’s legendary properties: Copacabana Palace, A Belmond Hotel, Rio de Janeiro; Villa San Michele, A Belmond Hotel, Florence; Castello di Casole, A Belmond Hotel, Tuscany; Hotel Cipriani, A Belmond Hotel, Venice; and La Residencia, A Belmond Hotel, Mallorca.
Entitled "Haltes Colorées”, meaning ‘colourful halt’, each of these six site - specific works offers its audience a moment to pause for a fresh new perspective on its surrounding location and unique corresponding landscape. For this year’s MITICO series, Belmond’s storied properties continue to act as the stage for contemporary creativity, investing in the heritage of the future and the past, simultaneously.
“What brings together the six "Haltes" of the 2024 MITICO season (Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro, Tuscany, Venice and Mallorca) is the beauty of each location's environment. Celebrating nature and architecture, these six highly varied in situ works offer a new perspective on Belmond's properties, fitting into a different space each time,” says artist Daniel Buren.
The journey begins at the foot of Cape Town’s Table Mountain at the iconic Mount Nelson, where Buren entices visitors to take a moment to contemplate his work - Colourful Halt for Mount Nelson, work in situ, 2023. At the heart of the hotel, the new work surrounds the garden fountain - a true historical landmark feature, present since before the hotel’s inception. As the hotel celebrates 125 years, its role as the joyful home of Cape Town is reinforced with this bold commission, which kicks off its annual cultural programming, closely followed by an unprecedented exhibition at the Mount Nelson, in collaboration with the Norval Foundation.
Known for creating architectural interpretations of environments through colour and stripes, Buren uses the fountain’s circular shape as his base, installing 3 -metre-pillars around which alternate between mirrors and stripes. This succession of patterns playfully interacts with the surrounding nature, resulting in an explosion of light and movement when visitors wander through it. In the distance, Table Mountain extends over the hotel’s silhouette, resting on Buren’s fountain pillars and further integrating his work into the majestic natural landscape overlooking the hotel.
The artwork will be available to view by guests and visitors alike until 15 February 2025.
