This is not your usual hotel. Neither is this your typical art exhibition.

Dozens of resin stones floating in front of the hotel's entrance, more than a handful of chairs hanging high on one corner of the main lounge and giant sculptures occupy the poolside area.

And that's not all. Art works and design installations pervade every inch of South Jakarta's Grand Kemang Hotel, providing a fresh perspective to experience art and design, two majors that we still box separately despite their intertwining.

The exhibition also occupies one of the hotel rooms. Decorated heavily with silk, the Kamar Sutra (silk room) is a pun on the Indian sex bible, Kamasutra, as the artist tries to define what a hotel means, mysterious, sacred, sexiest and hedonic.

"ArTention HOT/eL", an exhibition part of the Indonesian Contemporary Art and Design event held at the hotel, tries to break boundaries, between fine art and interior design, and between public and private space.

The first might be an old tension frequently discussed by artists, designers and art observers. But, the latter is one that is really worth experiencing. How often does one get to roam every space of a hotel - including private ones - while not being a registered guest?

"The basic idea of Hotel Project 1...is not meant to modify a hotel room into a gallery, but to place art work all over the place in line with each room's dynamics," Seno Joko Suyono said, one of the exhibition curators.

And that provides professional designers involved in the exhibition with space to experiment, figuratively and literally speaking. It is often the case for a designer to tend to a client's order and compromise their own ideas.

"There seems to be a gap between interior design and fine art, unlike in other parts of the world where these two fields have been affecting and stimulating each other," Seno said.

"At this exhibition, designers want to free themselves from the routine framework. They want to showcase works that are based on the idea of a hotel, but not made-to-order."

The main objective of the exhibition is to create a closer connection between fine art and design.

Initiated by several designers from design firm Artura Insanindo, the exhibition later involved more than a handful of seasoned contemporary artists such as Yani M. Sastranegara, Teguh Ostenrik, Hanafi, Irawan Karseno, Yoes Rizal and Tiarma Sirait.

Yet, this time, there are no boundaries between works of a designer and an artist. They collaborate and complement each other. It's a joint effort in exploring and experimenting artistic concepts of a hotel while pushing the boundaries as far as they can.

Teguh Ostenrik wants to drown his Jesus sculpture in the hotel's pool. Iswanto E. Hartono hangs touched-up photos of his face on a wall of one corridor. Meanwhile, Permanasari Herawaningsih invades room 216 with her silk installation.

But, a hotel is still a hotel.

It still can't be art for art's sake or design for design's sake. Both hotel operator and the artists make compromises. In the end, it was one interesting discourse to reach a compromise.

"At first it was thought a challenge for a hotel to have all its facilities and public area used," Grand Kemang Hotel managing director Richard Daguise said.

Why a hotel in the first place?

"A hotel can be an alternative for a cultural community. We do not have such a hotel in Indonesia. Hotel Project 1 is a provocation we hope to continue," Seno pointed out.

"By making use of a hotel that strips and criticizes itself, the space was transformed from a passive to a more active and responsive art medium," exhibition curator Chandra Johan said.

"The interior of the hotel becomes a collection of things that speak to the guests about issues in the daily life of a hotel, from lifestyle and culture to socialites and affairs," he added.

A collaborative work by Keni Aryani, Anabelle Clarissa, Permanasari Herawaningsih, Neneng Ferier and Tjuk Rahayu highlights the issue of rumors and gossip with furniture set up in front of a black background sprinkled with thought clouds mocking our fondness of spreading rumors.

It looks a bit kitsch, but perhaps that's what rumors and gossips are all about.

Having been part of our urban life for so long, the concept of a hotel is rarely scrutinized even though it is full of interesting phenomenon. It's socially a nonspace, an escape from home, a transiting place.

Hotels witness all sorts of things from affairs to business agreements and under-the-table political lobbies. A hotel evokes an artist's imagination as Hanafi wrote in an SMS sent to exhibition curator Chandra Johan.

"A hotel is a home without electricity bills, monthly contribution to our community units, land certificates, envelopes of our salary statements from last month and letters from an old fling," Hanafi said.

From that imagination, comes exploration. To give it a second thought, the exhibition is not about invading the hotel space, it's about responding to it.

"A hotel often holds an art exhibition in certain rooms without substantially changing the interior while design exhibitions stick to functional rules," Chandra said. "*ArTention provides a new perspective."

Indonesian Contemporary Art and Design: "ArTention HOT/eL" exhibition runs until Jan. 15, 2010 at the Grand Kemang Hotel, South Jakarta.

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