Saturday, July 26, 1997 | 10:37 a.m.
This is the bounty of 90 minutes in the smooth clutches of the Las Vegas Art Museum leadership: an armload of press releases and a head full of optimistic fizz.
It's all meant to ease any skepticism about the group's tenancy in the museum portion of the Sahara West Library. The pile of paper? To quell doubts about the organization's aesthetic vitality by describing the many exciting exhibits coming soon. The sunny disposition? To reassure you of its financial health.
That there are misgivings on both counts, they are all too aware. "It's the same old detractors," Joe Palermo sighed to Sharon King when the subject came up a few weeks ago in LVAM's spacious offices. Palermo is the museum's president, King the vice president, and both have been double-timing it -- on a volunteer basis -- since before the museum opened Feb. 1.
Correction, Joe -- not detractors, skeptics. Because everyone in the arts community simply loves and respects everyone else, you won't find anyone wishing aloud for the museum to fail, or even offering any catty commentary for the record. And, in fact, probably no one does want LVAM to stumble, if only because it would cast a pall on anyone else's future museum-building plans. But people do wonder how LVAM is going to make it.
Not without reason. The Art Museum doesn't have a track record for museum-quality exhibits, and it certainly doesn't have a history of museum-level fund-raising. For years, LVAM has been widely considered a genteel group of culturally inclined matrons and hobby painters -- "the blue-haired ladies art club," as one local journalist once privately tagged them.
King, a past president, estimates the old LVAM had expenses of maybe $500 a month, and for years it received $25,000 a year and a building in Lorenzi Park from the city of Las Vegas. Its budget now will soar above $200,000 annually -- and no city handout.
As for aesthetics, there are those who think LVAM's previous shows often didn't even live up to its old, dumpy Lorenzi Park space, let alone these spiffy new digs.
The facility LVAM has taken over is gorgeous, but it comes with some down sides. The out-there location, at Sahara Avenue and Fort Apache Road, places it beyond the easy reach of most locals, tourists and, informed speculation has it, the strong financial support of Strip casinos. Also, the high projected maintenance, utility and programming costs scared away all the other potential museum operators.
Palermo shook all that off. "There are different ways to measure success," he said. "To me, we're already successful." The way he sees it, victory was achieved the minute the group took over the space, particularly given the 10-day window it was given to move in and set up. After years of calling itself such, the Las Vegas Art Museum is actually a Las Vegas art museum. Thus the constant references to the "new" LVAM (the board, for instance, is "75 percent new," Palermo said).
"We put the shows together," Palermo says, "put together the staff, put together a package of volunteers in time. That was a success in itself.
"We've had people from New York, from all over, write checks for $100, $500, $1,000 to be members," he said. "These are people who might see the museum three times a year, but they're so excited." See, it's just a matter of harnessing that feeling, making it pay ...
Numbers game
Success, of course, is relative. Look at the museum's attendance numbers. In its first two weeks, when hoopla about the advent of the Museum Age in Las Vegas should have been at its audience-drawing peak, the museum saw 106 visitors the first week, 164 the second. For the first 15 weeks, visitor volume was 2,594 -- an average of 173 a week, or 28 patrons a day during the museum's six-day week. A visitor can often have the gallery to himself.
But, Palermo insists, the figures are right in line with their projections. "We figured we would take in between 500 and 1,000 (a month)," he says, probably edging toward 1,000 by year's end. "We're right where we should be." Another measure of success!
Perhaps. "There's a concern that they're not growing as fast as we'd like to see them grow," says Las Vegas-Clark County Library District Director Darrell Batson. He stresses, however, that the district has only a conventional landlord-tenant arrangement with LVAM. As long as the museum continues to meet its bills -- a token dollar a year lease and $3,000-$4,000 a month in utilities and maintenance -- the district is hands-off.
"Right now everything seems to be going OK," says Library Board member Linda Dougan. "I'm just concerned about how long they can maintain." As for the attendance figures, "that does concern me."
"I wish them all the best, but we are looking. Because it's a big undertaking for a small organization like that."
"From a casual view, we don't see a great number of people going in there, and we wish it could be more," says Batson. "It's not exceptionally high."
One reason: the museum's high invisibility. Other than light publicity for some of its exhibits, LVAM hasn't done much to attract attention to itself. 'How much publicity has there honestly been?" Batson asks. Where are the bus-stop placards, the fliers, the public service announcements on low-cost, late-night cable channels? "The museum is one of the best-kept secrets in town," Batson says. "Get out there and toot your horn!"
What about the art?
While much has been made of the museum's space -- its 30,000 square feet have been ballyhooed as Smithsonian-quality -- there are those who feel that not much has been made of the space, at least so far. The opening show, put together by curator James Mann, was "Art After Postmodernism," his ambitious attempt to codify a new art movement. It received mixed reviews and was followed by a display of puppets and paintings by late ventriloquist Dick Westin. Later came a second "Art After Postmodernism" show.
Well, it's still early. "They haven't brought in King Tut, no," Batson said. "I don't know if it's fair or straightforward to ask them to put on a major exhibit right away." Splashy traveling exhibits are coming, Mann said. "As soon as we can afford it, which should be in early 1998." But they're not cheap. Mann recently priced a display of Western art: $16,000.
In the meantime, who needs King Tut when you have Bob Guccione? An exhibit of paintings by the Penthouse magazine founder is planned for September. Mann's cheeks still must ache from keeping a straight face as he argued for the artistic significance of Guccione's work -- most of the examples he showed seemed like the bland graphics you see on the walls of model homes -- but the painter's notoriety might help with the visibility problem. More promising is the current exhibit, "Survivors in Search of a Voice," a display of art related to breast cancer.
Mann has impressively big plans. He'd like to organize a retrospective of paintings by Bob Thompson, a pioneering black painter whose work Mann feels has been overlooked. The assembling of such a show, Mann figures, could be a blockbuster that lands LVAM some serious art-world cachet.
And he continues to push his theory of an "Art After Postmodernism" movement. He thinks a new generation of artists will reinvigorate the art world through the blend-o-matic use of techniques abandoned by modern art -- perspective, narrative, the ability to actually draw. Las Vegas, he argues, will be a ground-level place for the movement. If so, it could assure the Art Museum of continued relevance.
But the gears of museum exhibition turn slowly; mounting some of the ambitious shows LVAM envisions will take longer than the two years the organization has contracted to occupy the museum. An early extension of its tenancy will be required. That and money, of course; lots and lots of money.
Show them the money
The museum's vision of its future: lots and lots of money. Local businesses writing fat checks, lucrative membership growth, money-making functions galore.
LVAM will need it. Expenses, Palermo says, are running $10,000-$15,000 a month, and the museum is bringing in roughly the same amount through membership dues, admission, donations and small fund-raisers. As of the fiscal year that ended in June, the museum was $2,000 in the black, a very thin margin in the chancy world of nonprofit funding.
LVAM has an ambitious money-raising program, put together by Development Director Jan MacAdams, a key member of the new LVAM brain trust. Although it's still getting off the ground, the plan calls for raising cash through lucrative museum-business partnerships.
The thinking goes something like this: Ten as-yet-unspecified businesses will ante up $50,000 each for 15-year "lifetime" partnerships. Another 30 will agree to $5,000 annual arrangements. Fifteen more will sign up for $2,500 annual deals.
In return, partners receive such benefits as use of the facility to host events, access to a special (if not yet realized) VIP room and complimentary rental of artwork.
The campaign only recently kicked off so it's too early to judge its effectiveness; a few businesses have shown an interest although MacAdams says it's too early to name them. But some seasoned arts fund-raisers are unconvinced. The museum may have trouble extracting five grand a shot from very many businesses (let alone $50,000), even with the nifty space going for it -- particularly if donors don't get their names inscribed on anything (although lifetime donors will be listed on a permanent plaque).
At some point reality seems to have set in: The original plan was to find 100 businesses to cast their $5,000 lots with the museum. The target has been lowered, MacAdams said, to avoid overbooking the facility. Not to arrive at a more realistic goal? "Oh, no!" she said.
"If we only get 10, it will still be some good money," Palermo said. But some good money won't do in a situation that calls for a ton of good money.
Toward that end, MacAdams plans to work the facility for every fund-raising angle it can yield: Renting the gallery for special events (an estimated $60,000 a year). Renting out art from LVAM's permanent collection ($12,000 a year). Renting excess back-room space to other museums facing a storage crunch ($36,000 a year). This cash flow would be augmented by corporate and foundation grants and a herd of smaller fund-raisers.
Her anticipated total: $693,500 a year (not including the $500,000 they believe will come in from lifetime partners, which will be used as an endowment fund).
Gingerly suggest that these figures seem a tad rosy and you'll get a lot of vigorous head-shaking and the assurance that no, they are, in fact, eminently attainable.
There have been some encouraging signs: Potential donors have stepped forward to fund the development of a 20,000-square-foot sculpture garden outside the library, and Giorgio Armani has engaged the museum to host private fittings for his Las Vegas customers in late August.
Unexpected costs
Of course, money leaks away down dozens of channels. Maintenance, insurance -- power particularly. Consider, for instance, the relatively mundane matter of lighting the place. One recent Monday, Palermo stood outside the gallery doors, in the common lobby between the museum and the rest of the library, talking about LVAM's funding challenges. Overhead, a ring of ceiling lights burned brightly.
"We're closed today, and we're still paying a share of that," he said. The museum pays a set amount per month for power, and at the end of the year, the library district will bill it for any overage. Which means that every January, a guillotine could drop in the form of a $10,000 or $15,000 power bill (Palermo's worst-case guesstimates).
Inside the gallery, King indicated a bank of overhead spotlights illuminating the paintings. "These lights were all replaced about three weeks ago," she said. "Already, two, three, four of them are burned out."
"More than that," Palermo responded. Each bulb costs $12.50 to replace and they always seem to need replacing. "That's an expense we didn't really figure on being as high as it's been," he said.
Palermo, Mann and King believe the museum can continue indefinitely at its current lean level; expansion, they say, will mean even more dollars. "Once people see the scope of our ambition, even more will be forthcoming," Mann said. "Not only contributions, but funding for shows, even donated artwork for our collection."
Location, location
OK, say the money rolls in as planned; say there's always $12.50 on hand when a bulb goes out; say Mann's "Art After Postmodernism" theory starts to pan out; say even that the Guccione show isn't the embarrassment it has the potential to be -- can LVAM still hit the city like an asteroid, the way everyone's always figured a museum would?
That may be iffy. The location remains dubious; not only is it too far for Strip-trapped tourists, it's quite a trek for almost everyone else. Will culture vultures in Green Valley really frequent a museum that far away?
Then there's the public entity the museum is attached to, the library district. Once a dedicated cradle of culture, the district has undergone a change in administration and a consequent about-face in its attitude toward the arts, seeming to regard its theaters and galleries with a certain disdain. Although everything is hunky-dory between the library and LVAM for the moment, one observer wonders, "How can you be an effective arts organization when you're with a group that hates the arts?"
The Art Museum's directors try hard to come off as unconcerned about such things. A planned media blitz will raise LVAM's profile, they say. A company is planning a cultural tour service that may bring daily busloads to the museum. As for local interest, LVAM membership has doubled since the facility opened -- to nearly 700 -- and Palermo expects it to triple by year's end. Volunteers are plentiful, more than 70 now, and to hear some of them tell it, the museum and its people constitute a happy little community of culture. Docents are putting themselves through training courses without being asked to. Everyone's jazzed!
"A woman came up to me with tears in her eyes" after a recent function, King recalled. "She said, 'Finally, art in Las Vegas!'" Sure, you'd have to have had your head in a bag the last five years to actually believe that, but her comment does indicate a growing excitement about the museum and the possibilities it embodies. So while the frustrations can be many, Palermo says -- was that another light bulb flickering out? -- when people respond like that, "how could you not want to go on?"
archive
