Las Vegas Art Scene

My essay about the art scene of Las Vegas

 

 

 

“Las Vegas Art Scene”

 

      Most people believe that Las Vegas is a cultural wasteland. We must be nothing more than a tourist trap to get overweight foreigners to spend all their money on slot machines and blackjack and enjoy one of out many all-you-can-eat buffets. Well I took a trip around Las Vegas in search for the so-called “art scene” that we had because I was quite skeptical that we had any “scene” in the first place. I traveled to the Guggenheim at the Venetian Hotel and Casino and the Water Street Gallery in Henderson. The difference between the two galleries put a look of shock on my face. Both galleries had totally different atmosphere, bodies of work, and locations.

      The first gallery I went to was the Guggenheim, a art museum at the Venetian Hotel and Casino. As soon as I walked in the museum the first thing that I noticed was the whole gallery was dead quite and two security guards where in each room keeping an eye on every move that you make. This really made me uncomfortable the whole time I was there. The gallery space was cut up into four rooms and each room had a different theme. The four themes where portraits, still life, landscape, and genre. One wall in each room had a small essay telling you a brief history of that theme. Many different artists where featured in the museum such as Picasso, Monet, and Van Gogh. The portrait section of the museum had a wide array of paintings, most of them where of very proper and well dressed people but a few where very colorful and cartoonish. The still life section features a few paintings by Picasso. One painting featured a bowl of fruit and a vase. At first glance this painting it just looks like a bunch of squiggly lines but after standing in front of it for a good 10 minutes and roaming every detail with my eyes certain features start to pop out and they start to resemble a bowl of fruit and a vase. Just think of one of those eye illusion books, one second all you see are squiggly waves and then suddenly a boat jumps out. Picasso’s still life painting are very flat and twisted up, the fun part of looking at them is actually trying to untwist the puzzle but for some reason the clear picture always seems out of reach. The next section was the landscape portion which was personally my favorite. I forgot the artists name but the painting still stands out in my mind. The painting featured a dark little town on the side of a mountain. All the people are missing and horses are roaming the street looking for food because their heads are down and you can see their rib cages. The sky has dark swirling clouds in the background and I swear they take the shape of a skull screaming. A brick road carves its way into the mountain side and on the side of the street it looks like a melting clock or mailbox, I looked at it for a long time and I could never really make a decision. The last section of the museum was the genre section. All the paintings had more than one person in them and mostly showed people interacting with each other. This was the most crowed room in the whole gallery and it was a hard to get a good look at each painting because people keep bumping into you and make impatient noises if you looked at a painting to long. All together I really like the Guggenheim art museum. The gallery space was set up nicely and the themes had a very broad range. All the paintings had a plain of glass in front of them but they where so clear that I swear you could touch the painting if you wanted too. The museum is amazingly quite and gives you a clear mind with no distractions to contemplate the art. The few things I didn’t like about the museum where all the security guard staring you down, I know that they have to protect the art but it makes contemplating a Picasso painting much harder with some hairy security guard burning a hole in the back of your head with his thousand yard stare.

     The next gallery I went to was the Water Street Gallery located in downtown Henderson. They host an event on every third Thursday of the month called Third Thursday. This art gallery was totally different from the Guggenheim. First thing I noticed when I walked in was the extreme amount of noise that filled the gallery. The gallery space is set up into three rooms side by side. Each room is secluded from the other rooms and it is impossible to see anything but the art that is displayed in the room that you are standing in. The first room was the biggest and had a table decorated with food and drink. Walls around the first room adorned photographs from many different artists. All the photos where taken at Goldwell which is a ghost town about 3 hours outside of Las Vegas. The photographs ranged from barren landscapes to sculptures from artists that where put up in that desolate town. One series of photographs arranged in one large frame showed different stages of many different women cleaning and repairing a large pink statue of a woman which was made out of cinderblocks. Another photograph featured a wide view of a series of sculptures. The sculptures where arranged to represent Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of The Last Supper. The photograph showed the each sculpture with a different colored light shinning under them. The sculptures alone look pretty creepy and disturbing but in the dark with colorful lights under them the sculptures looked almost festive as if they are waiting for Santa to come and leave each one of them a gift at their feet. Also in the first room I noticed a flat screen television playing a documentary on the history of Goldwell. This was a good idea gone bad because it just added to the noise and chaos of the gallery and distracted me from really absorbing the art. The second room was a little smaller than the first room and featured the drawings of Anne Hoff. On the wall hung a small essay written by the artist about her artwork which really helped when trying to figure out what her work was trying to get across to you. Most of the drawings where cut up into different sections and where hung by string from the ceiling. Each section was drawn on a transparent plastic that looked like paper. The first drawing that I saw was of a young man. The sections where cut into thirds vertically so you saw his head, then open space, his torso, open space, then his feet. The young man also had two hand floating next to him with red fingertips. Since the drawings where all hanging in mid-air the air conditioning was giving them a soft spin which didn’t reveal the whole picture right away, you had to wait for each piece to spin toward you so you could see it clearly and once you saw one piece another piece would spin around so it was facing the wall. You never really saw the whole picture standing still. I think the picture was trying to represent the young man pushing off. The drawing itself twirling in the air, never sure where it is going to so next. The second room didn’t have many people in it and the room itself did a good job of blocking out most of the noise from the first room. The third and final room was really small and on the walls hung fancy ancient looking scrolls which where rolled down and had pictures of Buddhist statutes and landscapes printed on them. I never really saw anybody in that room at all and it had to be the quietest of them all. The Water Street Gallery had some really good art hanging on the walls but the atmosphere ruined it for me a little. The first room was very noisy and was packed with people, most the of photographs where being blocked by people standing in front of them talking to each other and not even looking at the photograph itself but the gallery space is amazing and gives each room is own personality.

         So after my adventure into the Las Vegas art scene I discovered a few things. Art museums and art galleries are two totally different places and each has their strengths and weaknesses. Art museums are very quite and let you contemplate the art clearly but the security guards will stare you down the whole time, while art galleries give you free roam around the room without the worry of being tazered but the atmosphere in a art gallery can be very cramped and loud which can give one a difficult time when it comes to contemplating and enjoying the art. My main discovery on this journey was that Las Vegas actually has a art scene. This scene might be only noticed by a few locals but it is alive and I am happy that I found it. I continue to discover new things about my hometown and sharing them with other people is a great pleasure.