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

Art in America, Feb, 1997 by Alisa Tager

The city considers this project to be an important part of an overall development scheme to revive a faltering district. Barbara Molasky says that the neon project has been simmering for years; now, with a growing interest in the arts and support from the city and from mayor Jan Laverty, everything is starting to come together very quickly.

Las Vegas is a town where anything that doesn't glitter risks getting passed over on the way to the casino. In 1981, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Brugen created a site-specific sculpture at UNLV that seems a thoughtful response to that predicament They made a huge flashlight standing on the ground, pointing downward. Light creeps out from around the bottom edges. Seeming to acknowledge that art can't compete with the flamboyance of the strip, the work implies that looking down to examine what lies below the surface can be a rewarding experience.