Artist JR Crafts an Extraordinary Interior for the Venice-Simplon-Orient Express
Named L’Observatoire, or the Observatory, the fantastical train car made its debut in equally dramatic fashion at the Venice Biennale
Visitors to Venice in the opening week of its art biennale are used to strange sights. But a train carriage parked on the Lagoon—first outside the Hotel Cipriani on Giudecca island, and then on the opposite shore, near the biennale’s home at the Giardini—certainly stopped people in their tracks.
While its exterior was finished in the elegant navy blue livery of the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, its interior turned out to be the latest project from the street artist-slash-activist, JR. “From the moment I started to make art, I realized that trains were a way to make my work travel,” says JR, a 2019 Galerie Creative Mind.
Eye-shaped windows allowed glimpses into a series of extraordinary spaces inside the train carriage, called L’Observatoire, or the Observatory, which include a bedroom with en suite bath, a day area, a lounge area, and a library lined with books from quintessential French publisher Gallimard. From the last zone, guests can access a hidden room with a fireplace. “Imagine that, no one is going to come unexpectedly,” says JR with a glint in his eye.
“We’ve always built the craziest rooms in our studios in New York and Paris,” says the artist. “In New York we have a ‘submarine’ that I hide away in. If you came to the studio, you wouldn’t know I was there. When the people from Belmond [who own the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express] visited, they said, ‘Why don’t you do that on a train?’”
The extent of the detail inside the carriage is layered and extreme. “Here you see a whole wall of marquetry,” notes JR, highlighting just one of the many details observed through the windows. “It references my projects in Brazil and Kenya. We had special artisans in France working on it. We gave them drawings and they transformed them to this amazing inlaid surface.” At the time of the fair, other planned elements, such as a disco ball, were yet to be installed inside the carriage.
JR has often conducted projects in places fraught with inequality or conflict—the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, for example, or among the dispossessed in India, or in a high-security American prison. He photographs the locals and enlarges the images to create murals that give them presence and validity.
Yet, the artist sees direct parallels with his installation for a luxury brand. “My work is always about creating dreams,” he says. “That can be in the middle of [the war-torn] Mauritania or here on the train. I don’t have borders of any kind.”
Guests hoping to experience the JR carriage can make reservations this summer for travel beginning in March, 2025. The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express starts in Paris and moves through the Alps via the Simplon (which connects Switzerland and Italy), before finishing in Venice.
Already an extraordinary journey through an incredible landscape—“time stands still when you’re on the train. You’re in the moment,” says JR—the artist is adding to the exceptional with myriad moments of the surreal. The interior is filled with clues, codes, and games which will take travelers on paths of discovery. Behind secret doors and cupboards lie a range of subsequent surprises, including JR’s own camera. “It’s meant to inspire a sense of wonder,” he says, “and your inner child.”