Silver Nova: Luxury Cruise Ship Or Floating Art Museum?

25.09.2023 - 14:55 / forbes.com / Royal Caribbean / Silver Nova / Art

You don’t need to be more than an occasional cruiser to have noticed a boom of late in fine art displays on luxury vessels. In addition to all the great design innovations to discover on Silversea’s new Silver Nova, one of the most exciting elements is the enormous and diverse multimedia contribution from fifty-nine world artists.

As lead curator who has worked on some twenty-five ships in the portfolio of Silversea’s Royal Caribbean parent, Chief Creative Officer Mariangela Capuzzo of the International Corporate Art group calls the collection “a museum-like opportunity of discovery.” Of the 1,766 works that her team brought together over a year’s time for the Nova, nearly all were commissioned and the majority made by women.

With artists coming from twenty-five countries, the collection also serves as an introduction to important photographers, painters and sculptors around the globe whom guests may not be familiar with. It’s a simple and gratifying experience just to wander the Nova, and with the prompt from brief descriptive wall plates to then search further online for background on the artists whose pieces most intrigue you.

Take the sort of vaguely Degas ballerina you see promptly upon embarking. Francesco Messina was an Italian sculptor whose long life and work stretched throughout most of the 20th century. Among his thirty-eight bronze sculptures onboard, that Scuola di Danza piece of a nearly five-foot-tall, heavily patinated ballerina with outstretched arms is a joy to see each time you pass by on daily shore excursions.

In assembling a collection of artworks that were created principally by methods of handcraft, Capuzzo describes her approach as providing the eye, i.e., you the viewing passenger, a connection with the processes behind textures and materiality. She has pointedly gathered works from artists whose choices of medium and colors represent their respective regions.

The fore and aft stairwells hold the heart of the collection, and their two dozen works are literally enough to make for their own gallery show. If you take your time, you’ll discover new details and aspects of individual pieces on each of your vertical comings and goings.

Works on the forward stairs that use metal, ceramic and wood in browns, rust, ocher and gold represent earth and fire, while those aft with a water and air theme employ glass and textiles, as well as often using natural materials such as shells and feathers.

Literally every stairwell piece merits close inspection for its meticulous handwork. Berlin-based Japanese artist Aiko Tezuka’s Lessons for Restoration (Perspective) 4 consists of a deconstructed woven fabric, the weft of which she unravels within a central oval portion so that vertical lines