Cincinnati
Cincinnati
“We are a museum first and a hotel second,” says collection manager Eli Meiners, who tours me around the first two floors, open 24/7 for anyone off the street who wants to look at artists such as Do-Ho Suh and Astrid Krogh. Installations, many by Cincinnatians, occupy every guest floor and change regularly. On mine, the elevator opens upon a life-size sculpture of the singer Madonna heeling her go-go boot through a Picasso. My room is sleek—all lines—except for a four-foot-tall polyurethane penguin as yellow as French’s mustard. In the bathroom, hotel designers commissioned local Rookwood Pottery to create a witty series of white tiles brandishing body parts—lips, noses, breasts, belly buttons. I feel a little as if I’m part of the spectacle.