Le Sirenuse's Latest Site-Specific Artist Commission Draws Inspiration from the Amalfi Coast

Everything feels like a work of art at Le Sirenuse, the Positano, Italy resort where even the famous outdoor pool features a site-specific piece by Swiss visual artist Nicolas Party. This year, the family-owned hotel welcomed 20 seascapes by another Swiss artist, Caroline Bachmann. Inspired by the hotel’s eagle-eye view of the Li Galli islands, Bachmann painted these 20 new works as a representation of various moments throughout an imaginary day, from midnight to midnight. All 20 now adorn the walls of Le Sirenuse’s Don’t Worry Music Bar, which was recently transformed into the Amalfi Coast’s first listening bar—complete with a state-of-the-art sound system.

Antonio Sersale, co-owner of Le Sirenuse, fell in love with Bachmann’s work while attending her solo show at Galerie Gregor Staiger in Zürich. The pool’s origin story is similar. “The pool came about because we went to Nicolas’ exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in LA about five years ago. Over all of the walls, he painted this beautiful mural, almost like the inside of a cave. Then, he placed some of the paintings on top of the mural,” Sersale told Surface. “I thought, how exciting would it be to have Nicolas do this underwater kingdom that you only saw if you were looking into the pool.”

The Bachmann and Party commissions are integral parts of Le Sirenuse’s artist program. “They are in conversation with all of the other works in the collection,” Sersale continued. “The pool is joyful. It celebrates life, color, movement, reflection—all things that you find in the other works scattered throughout the hotel.” Sersale credits the curator Silka Rittson Thomas for his commitment to site-specific works for the hotel and the Artists at Le Sirenuse program. Founded in 2015, this initiative has led to notable contributions from Alex Israel, Rita Ackermann, Matt Connors, and more.

“There is one thing that brings it all together—the idea of the new and the old in sync. It’s something that Italians love to do. These collections have been made over the generations,” Sersale added. “Some works of art were collected by my father, some were here before him, others I’ve added myself. The idea is that it’s not my works are more important—I am just adding to a collection that is being built over time.” Sersale selects artists with his wife, Carla. And, aside from their specific pool commission, they let artists decide what they’d like to make and where it will reside on the property.

Carla underscored that it was a true dialogue between artist and place. She returned to the pool as an example. “The colors in all the art that we bring here reflect not only the rest of the collection but also the environment where they are,” she said. “With the pool’s blues and greens—the greens are the same as the nearby tiles, the blues of the sky and the sea, which is a very deep blue that’s typical of here.”

Through Bachmann’s circular oil paintings, Don’t Worry Music Bar is offered 20 portals into a liminal space, both real and imagined. It took the artist nine months to complete the commission. She explained that her work creating the series was “like painting a self-portrait, not only because the artist’s profession is a kind of island, but also because an identification takes place in the act of painting an island that allows you to bring it inside yourself and see it as a subject that is completely internal.” In many ways, this is a metaphor for Le Sirenuse which feels like an intimate, extravagant home with an impressive art collection.