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| Video of Hall with the bottles shaping the number '200'. |
The art installation is made from 200 champagne bottles handpainted by Hall in his energetic drip style. The artwork on each bottle is unique, with the design of each one inspired by one of the InterContinental brand’s 200 hotels (and counting). The finished bottles are suspended together to reveal the number ‘200’.
Hall said, “When I first started painting champagne bottles I just wanted it to make people feel something positive. Champagne for me means happiness, joy, celebration and the idea of bringing people together. That’s why I decided to paint on champagne bottles to celebrate the 200 InterContinental hotels. I wanted the bottles to reflect each InterContinental hotel’s unique personality, design and location, as well as the legacy and pioneering spirit of the founder, Juan Trippe.”
Hall has a signature style which involves drips of paint. "I love the process of interpreting in my way and the freedom to use anything around me to make things," he said.
He shared that the project took three months, with the 200 bottles actually handpainted in a stretch of six days and nights in a rented studio. In addition to the usual materials that Hall uses on canvas, he chose unusual media such as diamond dust, gold leaf and spray pens for the project. A full can of varnish covers each bottle as well.
"I used metre-long sticks and whipping them in the air to get the right effect," he said. "I wanted them to really pop...I wanted to really have the viewer have the endorphin that I had in the movement and the expression of colour."
Martin said the story-telling ethos behind the artwork is a really good link to the hotels. "The InterContinental has so many stories to tell," he said.
Martin also shared that his two favourite bottles are the ones for Singapore - as he is based in the country - and the bottle for the InterContinental Dubai Marina, which he opened.
Tania Getzova, GM at InterContinental Singapore Robertson Quay also said of the achievement, “With so many notable hotels in the world, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts has definitely made its mark on the world stage. We will continue to embrace authentic travel as an important and essential part of life and we look forward to the continued growth of the InterContinental brand as we forge into the future!”
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| Martin with one of his favourite bottles, the one for the InterContinental Singapore. Hall said he wanted it to look clean and minimal, and was inspired by the colours of the Singapore flag, which are red and white. "The idea behind it was 'clean' and 'simple' and 'to the point'. Over-complicating is quite easy to do but I didn't do that because I wanted it to be representative of Singapore," he said. |
The InterContinental Hotels & Resorts is today the world’s largest luxury hotel brand, nearly twice the size of its nearest competitor. In February 2019 the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) announced the acquisition of Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas, one of the world’s leading operators of luxury hotels, resorts and spas. The brand has a history of pioneering luxury travel.
Fun facts:
- Each bottle is inspired by the flag of the country that an individual hotel is in, together with research about the location and the hotel.
- There is a valve at the top of each bottle which houses a wire so that the bottle can be suspended at a specific height.
Explore:
View some of the 200 bottles on Facebook
Hashtags: #InterContinentalLife, #InterContinental200
