Art on the strip - various artists, various venues, Las Vegas, Nevada

Art in America, Feb, 1997 by Alisa Tager

"Art in Las Vegas" is either an oxymoron or a statement of the obvious, depending upon one's definition of art. The city's center is a strip of casinos which specialize in creating complex fantasies and illusions to attract spectators and participants. There are casinos that look like pyramids or Italian villas, sideshows with life-size pirate ships that sink and white tigers that seemingly vanish into nothingness, and multimedia installations with three-dimensional movies and state-of-the-art sound. More elaborate than Disneyland and more interactive than the Net, Las Vegas constantly raises the standard for forms of entertainment and visual engagement. Like Los Angeles, it is a one-industry town, with the strip and the casinos as its social, economic and cultural heart. Making art in Las Vegas requires large doses of self-confidence in order to avoid being overwhelmed by the welter of existing visual stimuli.

Las Vegas was founded in 1905; in 1931 the state legalized gambling, small casinos began to appear and the city grew rapidly. This year is the 50th anniversary of the opening of Bugsy Siegel's casino, which marked the real arrival of the gambling business. Now, after years as a strange boom town in the middle of the desert, Las Vegas has a population approaching one million: it is a society large and diverse enough to provide an audience, and prosperous enough to provide an economy that can support art. In the 1980s, corporations saw the profit potential simmering in Las Vegas and began to buy into the strip; the transfer of ownership, power and priorities brought in a new breed of business people, many of whom are more interested in cultivating an art scene than the mob ever was. Also, the city's once-seedy reputation has been ameliorated by the increasing acceptability of its principal activities-more and more states are legalizing gambling-and by its disguising of gambling as family entertainment. The city has been redeemed by default. The sleazy old Vegas still exists, but it has been relegated to the margins of the city center.

Although many artists live and work in Las Vegas, it's tricky for a visitor arriving in the city to find the art. It's not that the scene is underground, but that the art is integrated into the city, often via nontraditional venues. Lacking most of the major institutions of an active art world, artists in Las Vegas must seek new ways of exhibiting their work.

There are no galleries presenting cutting-edge contemporary art@ there are no art museums (contemporary or otherwise); there are no regular art publications. There are, however, several prominent collectors (who usually buy directly from artists' studios and from out-of-town galleries), an increasing number of alternative spaces and several ambitious new projects on the horizon. There are also two vigorous support organizations, the Contemporary Arts Collective (CAC) and the Nevada Institute for Contemporary Art (NICA).

The CAC is a storefront with 10-foot ceilings in the heart of downtown Las Vegas, A nonprofit, artist-managed membership organization, it supports southern Nevada's contemporary artists by providing a place for them to exhibit their work, curate exhibitions and participate in the administration of an arts organization. CAC helps to contextualize the work of local artists by sponsoring and presenting exhibitions of art made outside of the area. However, the bulk of the exhibitions are works by local artists: university students, university faculty and artists working in the community.

NICA is more formally structured. It is a nonprofit visual-arts organization which highlights the works of artists from Nevada and occasionally hosts traveling shows. For the 10 years of its existence, NICA has been the principal venue in Las Vegas for viewing contemporary art. It has always included an exhibition space and had an active schedule of community outreach and education programs. NICA director Mark Masuoka recently helped to organize the NICA/Rio Project in conjunction with the Rio Suites Hotel and Casino. Twenty-three Nevada artists were commissioned to make pieces for the hotel and casino, the largest single commission in the history of the state. Works by Mary Warner and Charles Morgan, as well as Philip Argent and Jane Callister (collaborating) are among the paintings and photographs which line casino corridors; their art and projects will be discussed below. These made-for-rio pieces, which include a giant wood totem erected alongside a pool with waterfalls, fit right in with the hotel's prevailing carnival theme.

Masuoka emphasizes the importance of working with local institutions to generate a bigger better-informed art audience. But this is only part of the larger plan. NICA is transforming itself from an art institute into a full-fledged museum of contemporary art. Masuoka says that the organization is accumulating a permanent collection and is considering sites for the museum. He anticipates a two-phase building process: first a central structure and then spaces for artists in residence and additional programs. Masuoka says that this is "not a whim. It started as a dream, but it has become really realistic." He sees an opportunity to fin a gap in the city's cultural life and he believes that there is now enough interest to support such a project. In the meantime, NICA is located between a health-food restaurant and a car wash in a mini-mall called The Cannery. The location serves its outreach effort, making it accessible to an audience not necessarily on the lookout for art. The idea that you can see art while somebody cleans your car is not strange in a town where you can play slot machines at the grocery store or win a free tank of gas if the right numbers come up when you fill your tank at the local station.