The place where art objects were incorporated into the routine of people on vacation.
That’s exactly what I had a chance to experience in Casa Malca.
This one-of-a-kind hotel, located in Tulum, Mexico, designed and built by the gallery owner, art dealer and collector Lio Malca eight years ago offers a practically museum-like collection of art including such names as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jitish Kallat, Ravinder Reddy, Keith Haring, KAWS, Yum Minjun, Kenny Scharf, Sunil Gawde and others.
Most of the pieces are originals (the hot and humid climate of Yucatan Peninsula being quite damaging for few paintings which were replaced by prints). Some of them were ordered to artists by the owner exclusively for this property!
Mark Ride “Rosie’s Tea Party”, 2005
Holton Rower “Anti Homphobic Leadership Summit”, 2012
Colombian-born Lio Malca has been living in New York City since the 1990s and was one of the first to take serious notice of the artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.
Together with Kenny Scharf, who is also Lio’s friend, these legendary artists formed the foundation of Malca’s own collection.
Nowadays, Lio Malca beeing one of the leading experts on Basquiat and Haring.
In 2015 Lio Malca transformed an old salt warehouse along the Mediterranean Sea into a dynamic exhibition space on the glamorous Spanish resort island of Ibiza.
Malca, who also owns a summer home in Ibiza, considers the exhibition space to be his gift to the island, which he calls one of the most magical places on earth. La Nave opened with an exhibition of works from Lio’s private collection by Brooklyn-based artist KAWS. I found KAWS renowned Mickey Mouse, original, sitting in the hotel reception hall, one of my favourite art piece of the property.But even before the reception, hotel guests and visitors (there are also three art-restaurants on the residence’s territory) are greeted by the functional and highly photogenic art object designed by the owner himself. The “curtains” made of local wedding white dresses and swinging sofa and arm chairs, perfect Instagram spot which somehow became hotel signature.
But even before the reception, hotel guests and visitors (there are also three art-restaurants on the residence’s territory) are greeted by the functional and highly photogenic art object designed by the owner himself. The “curtains” made of local wedding white dresses and swinging sofa and arm chairs, perfect Instagram spot which somehow became hotel signature.
Art pieces are spread over the paradise beach just like these giant Blind Bulbs made by Sunil Gawde in 2006. They seemingly represent the human bodies and were initially commissioned for Saint-Tropez beach.Bulb has an interior and an exterior – both brimming with intense possibilities of illumination. The enlarged bulb, though it connotes light, doesn’t illuminate from within; it’s not connected to its source. Its interiority gets externalized, on the contrary, through a black substance emitted, that attains the shape of a bat. This nocturnal creature doesn’t need eyes, and ‘sees’ through noise reflection. So the bulb could well be a ‘blind bulb’
Or again a work of another Indian Artist Jitish Kallat called “Eruda”. Its a sculpture of a young boy selling books on the traffic lights of Mumbai. The children (who could sometimes be illiterate) often sell these books authoritatively, playfully engaging in conversations about the book’s interest value; their rigour, audacity and endurance making them mascots for the resilience of a city such as Mumbai. Kallat’s sculpture has feet shaped like homes, forming the quintessential image of a nomad whose home is where he lays his feet.
Apparently beside the aesthetics element, the meaning of an art object mattes to the collector as well, as we can attest in “A Giant Leap of Faith” of the Indian artist Subodh Gupta. In this work Gupta stacked 13 buckets for the old monumental column. The bucket, symbol of the daily labor of millions of individuals, acquires here a spiritual dimension, like the strange concrete monuments that are the Indian countryside.
Lio Malca believes the purpose for the art pieces to be seen, which bring their price up as well. That’s why he created this hotel, an art space in Ibiza and also constantly lends the artworks from his collection to museums and galleries exhibitions around the globe.
Great fan of street art he seems to have the feeling of who’ll be the next big thing. That flair drives him to follow the young and emerging artists from different countries, sometime totally yet unknown to the big audience.
Wallpaper by Keith Haring inspired by Tokyo Pop Shop
Ravinder Reddy “Head for Diego”, 2009-2010
Kenny Scarf “Scary Guy (Red)”, 2013-2018
Details of hotel interior with the trademark art work of Colombian Rafael Gomez Barros – giant ants created from the casts of human skulls. “Untitled”, 2007
Outside wall of the main building recently paint by one of Lio’s friend and artist
Yue Minjun “Contemporary Terracotta Warriors”, 2003
