Two Hotel

A name in tribute to the pioneering work of Alighiero Boetti (1940 - 1994) and a commitment to pursue the mission he undertook with “One Hotel”.

The hotel, which served as home and studio during Boetti’s stays in Kabul from 1971 to 1977, is probably his most meaningful "Afghan artwork", despite the fact it has never been expressly considered as such until present times. 

It might be described as an unspoken, yet precise desire to create a meeting place where people could meet, have a glass of wine in the garden while listening to music or just enjoy a meal together.

The artistic intuition essentially consisted in facilitating this process of human interchange and, as a result, the mutual enrichment of those who were temporarily living in the hotel. A hotellerie initiative that was certainly unusual for those times, which appears even more extraordinary if we consider the geopolitical developments that afterward would have brutally marked the fate of Afghanistan and, although in different ways, of the whole world.

It is this visionary act that led to the constitution of Two Hotel, a symbolic second step along the path opened by the Italian master.

Following his teaching (or rather his “lesson", as suggested by Mario García Torres), Two Hotel is an open invitation for anybody to become a guest.

In the Italian language the word identifies both the figure of the guest and the host, therefore perfectly summarizes the identity of this new operation: reciprocity.

A mutual relationship, then, that translates in the awareness of the importance of each input, whether emanated or welcomed.

Ultimately, Two Hotel is an invitation to play this multifaceted role of a guest who welcomes, to help us remember how a few, significant encounters can actually generate the most incisive effects on our lives and over time. Last but not least, it encourage us to experience firsthand how art can be variously nourished instead of just being observed from a distance.

In essence, the artistic intervention no longer concerns only the physical space that the hotel makes available to the artist, but rather the immaterial one that the guests would grant.

It is this possible interchange, fused with the uniqueness of both human and natural elements, that defines the true essence of the project.

Each intervention will therefore reveal both function and functionality of a contemporary artwork, made even more evident by the circumstance that everything will happen in a non-institutional fine art site. 

Contemporary art will be then, finally introduced to its natural interlocutor: anyone who is willing to welcome it.