If you’ve been captivated by the look of the new Angad Arts Hotel, you’re not alone. After opening late last year, the Grand Center hot spot received its share of acclaim, including coverage by CNN and USA Today, in whose annual competition for Best New Hotel the Angad took the No. 4 spot.
It isn’t difficult to see why the hotel—146 artistically designed rooms, including 38 suites, 25 extended-stay rooms, and a revolving art gallery—has garnered the attention.
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Thanks to the care taken with details—from the room numbers, to the bed pillows and the art in the rooms—each space is permeated by a colorful, dreamlike quality.
Independent curator Jessica Mannisi was contracted through Art St. Louis to find local artists whose work would reflect the hotel’s edgy and irreverent aesthetic. Mannisi was already familiar with many artists but discovered more by frequenting art shows and searching social media. David Miskit, the Angad’s former executive managing director, set the parameters for the look of each space.
“Oftentimes, it’s artists from the coasts who get all of the recognition,” says Mannisi, “but there’s so much that’s right here.”
After compiling a list of leads, Mannisi presented her findings to Miskit. She remembers the process of winnowing the group of well-qualified candidates as a difficult one.
“I don’t know if I could have made those decisions [alone],” she says. “David [was] requesting a very specific thing. He wanted not just a feeling or color but also a particular style—something painterly, impressionistic.”
Of the 33 artists commissioned, four were selected to paint the rooms’ murals and each was given the choice of color in which to work. Spanning the wall behind the bed, the mural in the yellow rooms was painted by Yowshien Kuo, a St. Louis artist and educator. “I picked yellow because it was a color that I had never paid much attention to,” he says. “As I grow my career, [the color] seems to represent power and confidence.”
Though the artwork is true to each artist’s style, it also needed to support Miskit’s vision of a trip down a rabbit hole, as in the story of Alice in Wonderland—especially seen in the guest rooms’ bed pillows.
“The team wanted eyeballs on the pillows in every room. I was, like, ‘OK, that’s interesting,’” says Paula Haniszewski, art department chair and assistant professor at Southwestern Illinois College. “It was a unique concept.” After completing three submissions and finalizing a piece in the approved traditional style, Haniszewski assumed that her work with the hotel was complete. A few months later, however, Miskit and Mannisi called, expressing their interest in her Pop Surrealist image Punk-Ass for President. They also asked whether Haniszewski would create five more paintings to match its style. Today, the six works hang together in the Chameleon Lounge on the 12th floor of the hotel.
Kuo admits some doubts at the outset of the project, wondering how the team would pull it all together. For Mannisi, the goal was always to create a cohesive look despite the multitude of colors, styles, and emotions. She called on her experience curating galleries. As a result, stepping into the Angad Arts Hotel feels like walking through a local art gallery—from the first floor all the way through to the guest suites.
