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Guggenheim in Las Vegas: arts and craps - Front Page - Brief Article
Art in America, Dec, 2001 by David Ebony
When casino owner and art collector Steve Wynn opened his Bellagio Gallery of Fine Arts in Las Vegas in 1998 [see "Front Page," Nov. '98], few regarded this town of one-armed bandits and high-kicking showgirls as a credible venue for blue-chip art. However, some art-world figures, including Guggenheim curator Lisa Dennison, who was an advisor to Wynn, and Guggenheim director Thomas Krens, were not surprised by the success of the Bellagio experiment. On Oct. 7 of this year, the Guggenheim made a dramatic foray into the desert resort, inaugurating two satellite museums, the Guggenheim Las Vegas and the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, situated in the heart of the town, along its main casino strip.
Both of the new venues are located on the grounds of the Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino complex, housed in recently completed structures designed by Rem Koolhaas. The Dutch-born architect's severe, modernist design contrasts with the faux-rococo exteriors of the rest of the Venetian complex, which mimics certain architectural elements of its namesake Italian city. The Guggenheim Hermitage is a 7,660-square-foot facility featuring a steel facade and four symmetrical galleries, 1,500 square feet each, with movable Cor-Ten steel walls and maple wood floors and ceilings. Paintings are hung on the velvety, rusted surfaces of the walls by means of large magnets that can support hundreds of pounds. The museum is part of the wide-ranging collaboration between the Guggenheim and the St. Petersburg museum [see "Artworld," Sept. '00]. The inaugural exhibition, "Masterpieces and Master Collectors," features 45 well-known paintings from each museum's permanent collection [through Mar. 17, 2002]. On view are major works such as Picasso's Three Women (1908) from the Hermitage, and Kandinsky's Improvisation 28 (1912) from the Guggenheim. Also included are key pieces by Renoir, van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, Kupka and Leger.
The larger of the two facilities, the Guggenheim Las Vegas, is a 63,700-square-foot building with a 70-foot-high ceiling in the main gallery. A skylight features motorized trap covers located on the roof that adjust the amount of natural light entering the gallery. The inaugural exhibition is "The Art of the Motorcycle," with an installation designed by architect Frank Gehry. The show, which debuted at New York's Guggenheim Museum in 1998, remains on view in Las Vegas through June 2002. The new facilities bring the total number of Guggenheim branches to seven, including those in Venice, Berlin, Bilbao and two museums in New York.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group
