21c Museum Hotels is a hospitality company that combines boutique hotels and restaurants with contemporary art gallery spaces free to the public. Founders Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, both art collectors, want the public to be able to experience art as part of everyday life.
Brown and Wilson also have a thing for penguins, which they use as their public-art mascot. Not real penguins; the duo purchased a number of penguin statues made out of recycled plastic, and have populated their six hotels with them. The penguins, which are rotated throughout the properties by staff, may appear in the lobby, the galleries, the elevators, the restaurants, et cetera.
Separately, in 2015 artist and industrial designer Daniel Rozin created Penguins Mirror, an installation that used 450 plush toy penguins as black and white pixels. These were used to form one of Rozin’s signature mechanical mirrors, where the penguins act as pixels that reflect the viewer’s actions.
Brown and Wilson eventually caught wind of Rozin’s creation, and commissioned a Penguins Mirror for 21c. Here Wilson demonstrates it in action:
“I like how it doesn’t take itself too seriously. And that’s kind of perfect for 21C,” writes Wilson. “We see people from all walks of life, and this is one of those rare works where kids, adults, art lovers, and casual visitors all seem to stop and smile.”
21c has hotels in Bentonville, Arkansas; Cincinnati, Ohio; Durham, North Carolina; Lexington, Kentucky; Louisville, Kentucky; and St. Louis, Missouri. Wilson hasn’t mentioned which hotel the installation will go into.
