Experiences

Join us between 25 May and 31 November to explore MITICO, our new collaboration with acclaimed art gallery Galleria Continua.

Discover Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou’s two installations. 'Les Routes du Paradis', meaning the path of happiness, is a coloured path from the hotel’s grand entrance through our gardens to the magnificent 3rd-century Greek Theatre. Meanwhile, 'Totem Cristal' is an installation consisting of four human-sized totems that represent the unity of different people and cultures around the world.

Both ‘Les Routes du Paradis’, a coloured path leading from our grounds into the Greek Theatre, and ‘Totem Cristal’, four human-sized totems, explore movement. Particularly, Tayou explores the significance of individuals moving through time and space, and how this impacts upon the convergence of identities.

The totems are dressed with elements of various origins, embodying the process of creolisation — the mixing together of different people and cultures. Meanwhile, through colour, the artist celebrates life, culture, and the understanding of one’s self.

Born in Nkongsamba, Cameroon in 1966, Tayou divides his time between Ghent, Belgium and Yaoundé, Cameroon. Though he trained as a lawyer, he switched to art, first exhibiting in the early 1990s using everyday objects and forgotten or abandoned waste items.

Tayou’s work is deliberately mobile and heterogeneous, closely linked to the idea of travel and spontaneity. Variously exploring international themes such as identity and global consumption, his objects, sculptures, installations and drawings are linked by a recurrent feature: that of an individual moving through the world, exploring our global village.

Considered one of the driving forces on the contemporary art scene, Galleria Continua creates a bridge between past and present with work from some of the world’s most exciting artists.

Evoking a feeling of inclusivity and community, MITICO embodies a new art philosophy: it is the reinterpretation of universal customs shared amongst different societies, such as cooking, painting, observing,and appreciating, and how these are consumed in their environments.

Follow the art path and visit our other MITICO installations around Italy:
Viewing the World at Villa San Michele
Cooking the World at Hotel Cipriani
Loving the World at Castello di Casole