A Place To Stay

Refusés is pleased to announce A Place To Stay, an exhibition at the Grand Hotel Miramare in Santa Margherita Ligure, where it will be on view through September 2026. The project marks Refusés' second activation in Italy and continues the gallery's commitment to situating contemporary art within living, culturally resonant environments.

Blurring the line between exhibition and hospitality, A Place To Stay reflects on what it means to inhabit a place temporarily. Set within the vintage bar of the historic Grand Hotel Miramare, a site long associated with rest, leisure, and contemplation, the exhibition unfolds as a space of slowness, care, and quiet encounter, echoing the hotel's legacy as a place of retreat and reflection on the Ligurian coast.

Rather than serving as a neutral backdrop, the hotel becomes an active host. The artworks, like guests, exist as temporary residents, shaped by the architecture, the surrounding Mediterranean landscape, and the layered cultural memory of the Portofino promontory. The relationship between art and place is reciprocal: the works respond to the environment just as the environment absorbs and transforms them.

A Place to Stay brings together thirteen artists working across painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography: Brad Golden, Claudio La Mattina, Davide Cascio, Davide Padovan, Elspeth Vince, Emily Cussins, Ilaria Cuccagna, George Bartoš, Kaspar Ludwig, Milo Burridge, Mona Sultan, Monair Hyman, and joão MM. Their practices, rooted in diverse cultural and geographical contexts, enter into dialogue through a shared attentiveness to materiality, memory, and the textures of everyday life.

True to Refusés' ethos, the exhibition moves away from the neutrality of the white cube, inviting art into an intimate and lived environment. In doing so, it opens a softer, more accessible dialogue between art, place, and viewer, one that does not demand attention so much as earn it. A Place to Stay continues Refusés' ongoing research into experimental practices and amplifying perspectives that are shaping the future of contemporary art.