Tour the Museum-Quality Art Exhibition Inside the Megayacht Carinthia VII

All aboard the floating museum. The luxury yacht Carinthia VII was designed by Tim Heywood in 2002 for the Austrian billionaire Heidi Goëss-Horten, and two years ago, the 318-foot Lürssen vessel went through a major renovation by Bizzozero Cassina Architects, winning Best Refit title at the 2024 World Superyacht Awards. This summer, the palatial queen of the Mediterranean began moonlighting as a mini museum on waters.

The Paris-based curator Florencia Cherñajovsky who formerly organized shows for Centre Pompidou and the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires oversaw the layout of a multimedia contemporary selection out of a collection started by her mogul father who currently owns the yacht. The family’s layered art collection currently includes around 500 artworks some of which are the 20th century great Modernists. “I wanted the artists to be in a dialogue among each other and the space they occupy,” Cherñajovsky Galerie. Cherrypicking works from her family holdings adds a personal and nuanced twist to the display.

There are approximately forty museum-quality gems spanning photography, painting, drawing, and sculpture dotted throughout the super yacht’s soaring interiors—fifteen rugs from Cherñajovsky’s brand Lalana Rugs cover the Chantilly parquet floors reclaimed from a 17th-century Austrian abbey. Works by Tracey Emin, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rosemarie Trockel, Lutz Bacher, and Petrit Halilaj take over all corners of the breathtaking twelve-passenger vessel which, this summer, has been roaming the Côte d’Azur shore.

The sea and mobility are fitting themes for the nautical setting. For Cherñajovsky however, the main drive is to emphasize the potency of each artwork within a coherent orchestration, not unlike any museum display. A dominant thread across the seafare outing is one that reflects the overall family collection. “There are inner constellations between female artists from 1960s and onwards,” she explains.

Besides Emin and Trockel, travelers cruise with arresting statements by Louise Nevelson, Carol Rama, and Sarah Lucas in intimate corners, as well as public hallways. Emin’s disarming gouache-on-paper nudes and bronze sculptures, all from the last decade, infuse a bodily consciousness to the voyage. Nevelson, Lucas, and Rama suggest sensual and mediative musings on femininity with surrealist and even humorous touches. Brazilian women artists claim a significant portion of the floating show: Ana Maria Maiolino, Gomes, Wilma Martins, Wanda Pimentel inject tightly-structured and sunny abstractions to interiors designed by Ellerhorst & Kreuter.

Conceptual photography is yet another thematic pillar. The seminal German husband and wife duo Bernd & Hilla Becher’s black and white images of industrial buildings in post-War Germany, for example, adds an archival layer to Cherñajovsky’s curatorial outlook. The late key figure of Pictures Generation, Sarah Charlesworth brings a playfully provoking touch on the medium’s interconnectedness to popular visual culture. Tillmans, on the other hand, joins the fare with meditative images that explore the transformative chances of light, fitting to the blaring sunsets awaiting to be witnessed on its 334 square feet sundeck.

Lately, summer’s casual status as the art industry’s off season has been shuffled by the pandemic into another buzzy occasion to mount catchy group shows. The biggest switch in this transition however has been the backdrop for the art to shine. Leaving the white cubes in market capitals, dealers and curators have been landing on the Mediterranean and Aegean seas’ dreamy coves for unexpected spins for the collectors summering around. “Our intention is not to put on a first basis the market interest,” explains Cherñajovsky. Besides exclusivity, her show’s casual but intentional concept makes the curator’s case clear: “Time is the biggest luxury and here the viewers can enjoy art in a particular moment with different pace, rhythm, and configuration.”