The Ca-Vostra Hotel by Lene Schneider-Kainer: A Cosmopolitan Refuge and «Oriental Museum» in 1930s Ibiza
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5944/etfvii.13.2025.44806Keywords:
Exile; Tourism; Orientalism; Interwar Period; Women Artists; Material Culture; Modern Visual Culture; Postcolonial and Gender StudiesAbstract
In 1935, the Balearic magazine Brisas published an article entitled «Oriental Museum», referring to the collection that the artist Lene Schneider-Kainer (Vienna, 1885–Cochabamba, 1971) had brought back from a trip to Asia and she «exhibited in her refuge of Ca Vostra». Exiled in Ibiza since 1933, Schneider-Kainer opened a hotel where artists and intellectuals fleeing Nazism coexisted with the first international tourists. By decorating the hotel with her Asian collection, the artist created an atmosphere linked to the Orientalist projections and hedonistic experiences that contrasted with the reality of exile. Long-neglected sources, such as the guest book, photographs, and documents, serve to reconstruct the history of a space devoted to hospitality and creative exchange. By exploring the multifaceted production of the artist as hostess, this paper examines how cultural practices associated with the phenomena of modern mobility —travel, tourism, exile— are entangled in Ca-Vostra.
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