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A Beautiful Deep Dive Into Our Worldwide Arts + Culture |
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LAS VEGAS OR THE ARTIST? WHO'S GOING TO MAKE IT HAPPEN? |
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How do you get into Vegas? How do you know or even feel what it’s like to be here? It’s not going to be through the eyes of journalists like the ones who write in the magazine’s tourists skim having just flung their suitcases down in their hotel rooms. You’re going to get under Vegas’s skin by looking through the eyes of the people creating the beautiful and relentless machine that makes Las Vegas the entertainment capital of the world. The machine that even Heath Robinson would struggle to draw. It’s a science defying machine that not even AI could visualize.
The strange and intriguing people who create the magic are the people who hold the vibe in the venues, bars, galleries and boutiques and make you yearn to be here, or ‘come back soon’. They compel you to grab something to tide you over to your next trip. You can listen to the mother endorphin-maxing on her aerial hoop. A life so physical it just isn’t possible to imagine in any other way, well, not for us not-quite-in-shape readers. Talking of feeling someone else’s pain imagine closing the doors to your art gallery, the gallery that supported local artists, that gave them an income, that supported them for more than ten years. Every emotion running deeply through its owner as she locks the door for the last time. Find people. Talk to them. Bring the reality of Las Vegas to you so you can swallow it whole and sit gorged and perplexed while basking in the scorching sun that burns all careless visitors and Las Vegans alike. So, what does it mean for the artists who choose to make Vegas home? Some were born here, but most come from other places on a quest for a better life or a dream. In the storied history of remote desert towns, some are getting away from something or someone. We should be able to define them in a way that puts you directly in the picture they are painting. Being an artist anywhere is hard. Working in Jack in the Box is hard but at least there, you know there’s, ‘jack in the box’. As an artist you have to know that you only have your courage, determination and ability to see the reality you want to see, and that puts you in the same group as every performer in town except that your struggle is not born out in a four-waller at the Flamingo. There are galleries in Vegas, they come in all shapes and sizes and in three years’ time there will be a gallery of national importance, an annex, or as is billed, a sister to The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This is one of the times that the description ‘museum’ is really going to be true. I’m not having a go but sometimes the descriptors’ museum’ and ‘world famous’ are a little overused and have a tad of irony attached that the owners absolutely did not intend. It will be built in the only part of Las Vegas that does a good job of looking like San Diego. Welcome to San Vegas, home to The Smith Center, the Discovery Children’s museum, Symphony Park, and a ton of new high-density housing millennials will love. The new Las Vegas is here, it’s just that it’s on the other side of the tracks. This is a massive event and one that is turning our attention to what it means to be an artist in this town but will this town play ball? Well, we know it now plays ball, and even puck. In fact, it plays puck extremely well. The sports transition once it started was relatively easy. Will art be allowed to reframe the ‘what happens here only happens here’ heavily crafted message of excess and deviance that has permeated the world’s understanding of this desert town. The Vegas brand is so strong it strangles efforts to move on. The politicians and economists say they want to diversify but it rarely happens. In the slightly miss quoted words of Dave Hickey (UNLV 1990 – 2001), ‘there’s no critical mass’. But can this new gallery create a critical mass that will roll over and submerge everything like a flash flood. Will it be able to redraw the landscape? Or will it get short shrift by a city that understands how hard it is to make money from art and how easy it is to make money with a casino. So the issue to me is not what the artists do, who they are and whether they are different from any other city-based artist, but what the city does. The city that has already found a way to sustain itself and can be quite petulant when it is asked to do anything different. “Come on, we’re going to see an Ed Ruscha Barbara Kruger mash-up at LVMA, meet you there?” I cannot wait to hear myself saying that and for it to be real! Although it doesn’t really matter, I do think Las Vegas artists are different. I’d actually go as far as saying lucky because there’s no resident critics to degrade their paintings, no big buyers forcing them on to a production grindstone. And if you really want to make it big you can put an olive in a painting and go all the way to the top! Absolutely no offence meant Michael :^) Well done! So, artists, be free, be weird, use the desert as your muse, use this oddest of cities to be different and beautifully artificial, but make things that fit in suitcases if you want to make a living and until making a living isn’t your main concern. The snobbery towards Vegas makes it impossible for outsiders to see what is here. I’ve pretty well given up trying to convince them that life is good. I think I do it more to convince myself sometimes, if I am honest. Having LVMA exhibit some of LACMA’s 70,000 artworks on my doorstep will have a huge impact on my confidence in this city’s ability to hold a space for art, and for me. Creativity has to be fed. The most exciting thing is that a new museum will feed our artist community, it will put on feasts to which we will all be invited. It will be real and right in front of us. Creativity has to be fed, it is a combination of inspiration, input and thought; seeing art in-real-life is a 100% improvement for the intellectual development of Las Vegas artists, children and residents, it truly is one of the most important cultural improvements a city could make. It’s going to be amazing so come on Las Vegas, come on everyone, let’s bring this home.
Zoë Camper is a Las Vegas-based artist.
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