JUST BLACK AND BLUE
"Are they lazy?" asked the art news editor.
The question stopped me. I had not pondered that possibility. It seemed unlikely. Anyone who lives in a harsh desert climate cannot be lazy.
I had to think about it. Lazy did not lineup with all that I have been learning about the Las Vegas arts community. Everyone I have met, in the last year and a half, is invested and leisurely engaged, a hard worker toward their own objectives...
Yet, there is a noticeable dark cloud that hangs over the Las Vegas arts, like a fugue state. A melancholy. A heavy step.
"Are you still there?" asked the editor on the other end of the line.
"Yeah. Had to think about it," I replied, "No, the Las Vegas artist is not lazy. Clinically depressed? Yes. Beaten black and blue? Yes." I explained that all too often, the Las Vegas Artist has stood at the altar, alone, watching the bride run away.
Throughout the fascinating history of this all-American city, the Arts have made a few uprisings. Torches got lit, but nature, fate and lack of oxygen extinguished the flames. The Guggenheim and Dave Hickey in the past, Perrotin in the present and several local museum efforts could not take root in the hot sand. Maybe Vegas just needs a new brand of fertilizer.
In Las Vegas, very few people truly care about the arts. It just doesn't pay. Las Vegas is a sports town. Sports pay. The Arts aren't as shiny as the pompoms and circumstance of sport.
The Las Vegas artist has every right to be depressed.
But it will be a lot more fun to do something about it.
~ Gordy Grundy
Art Report Today .com
