Hotel Art Goes Pop

I left Where We Are Now at the Cincinnati Art Museum wondering if all contemporary art is pop art. The works come here from the 21C Museum Hotel in Louisville ahead of the opening of the boutique hotel in Cincinnati. Accessibility to contemporary art is perhaps first and foremost to a hotel collection, and what's more accessible than popular culture?

With Batman, Superman, a hip hop artist, American flags, music from the 80's this collection is certainly accessible to just about anyone who would stay at 21C. In a museum though, I grew tired and for a moment wished I was in a hotel so I could nap. Perhaps that's the catch; "Where Are We Now" may not be a rhetorical but a trick question. As a 21C collection, the answer is a hotel. At an art museum it is an endorsement of hotel chain.

And that's where we are.