British, LA-based photographer and visual artist Marco Walker has been commissioned by The Beverly Hills Hotel to reflect on its historic legacy, landscape and architecture, creating a new body of work featuring a series of portraits of the hotel through his lens. 

Walker’s recent work includes a campaign for Saint Laurent & commissioning artists for The Wrap Book. Walker and his work though are equally likely to be found in Bombay Beach, a derelict town in the California Desert, as one of the founding artists for The Bombay Beach Biennale, a renegade art festival on the Salton Sea.  This series will open a new chapter of the hotel’s cultural legacy with Walker documenting California’s most iconic and notable establishment through his singular point of view. This will be the first time an artist has been given access to the hotel with a direct commission from the hotel for a portrait series featuring the hotel. Artist’s Statement: ‘If these walls could talk’ perfectly embodies the feeling I had while walking through the corridors, bungalows, gardens, and every corner of this iconic institution. I felt an abundance of inspiration in every detail, from the hotel suites to Fountain Coffee, imagining the characters who have passed through and the stories lived and told. I hope the spirit and allure of this historic landmark lives on in this body of work. It was an honor to document the hotel as the first artist commissioned for this project. Using rare film and alternative photographic techniques, I embraced the challenge of capturing the essence of this previously very-well documented hotel in a new light. Jim Hedges, Curator of Beverly Hills Hotel says: “We are entering a thrilling new phase in the hotel’s arts program, one in which we move into artistic collaborations. For our initial foray, I brought forward Marco Walker whose work I have long admired, an artist with a singular sensibility and vision. LA-based Austrian-American photographer Walker has a beautiful visual vocabulary melding a unique palette with the surreal. I asked him to reflect on the hotel’s heritage and architecture, bringing his unique point of view to create an entirely new portrait of this iconic property. We are elated with the magic emanating from his studied gaze."