HAMMONS HOTEL, from 15 March to 20 April 2025, is the third exhibition at Garage Fontana, a new exhibition space in Modica that invites visitors to explore the ‘elsewhere’, by recreating places inside the garage through a combination of psychological, social and aesthetic considerations.

At the centre of the staging of HAMMONS HOTEL, which takes its name from Michelangelo Menu's canvas-sign, is a hotel with a bohemian atmosphere complete with a reception, a vestibule and a bedroom. An ‘out-of-the-way place’, a bit Chelsea Hotel, a bit artists’ refuge. 

At the HAMMONS HOTEL we experience the reconstruction of an eclectic imagery in which anecdotes and backstories resonate in a game of cross-references, that keeps us suspended between what we see and what the works subliminally convey. The clues are hidden in the words of the embroidered songs, in the expressions of the subjects portrayed, among the decorated cushions and in the titles of the works on display.

In the reception area, Michelangelo Menu's 'Hammons Hotel' polyptic, Servomuto's ‘I Wanna be your Dog’ lamps as a tribute to punk rock culture, French artist Pierre Huyghe's ‘Autoroute’ triptych, Giuseppe Arezzi's multifunctional ‘Binomio’ object transformed into a reception desk and his ‘Giro’ paper carpet. In the vestibule, Aldo Palazzolo's wearable fabric sculptures and portrait photographs, a ‘tattooed’ mirror by Alessandro Mendini for Zanotta and the double-sided ‘Go with the flow’ tapestries by the Picard & Schreckenberger duo, as a scrim. A transgressive note is set in the bedroom with Joseph Beuys' ‘Notice to Guests’, Cattelan's golden toilet ‘America’, the silkscreen prints on paper ‘Je n'aime pas / Le bon ton’ and the ‘CAOS QUOTIDIANO’ cushions by FUCK$IMILE.

The t-shirt ‘Modica is the new Paris’ by FUCK$IMILE x Garage Fontana is unveiled on the occasion of the exhibition. 

‘Be careful in the shower, the cold is hot and the hot is cold’. Quote Arthur Miller in The Chelsea Affect.

Garage Fontana, Via Fontana 199 Modica

Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.