Venetian, Bellagio working on new art deals

Friday, July 14, 2000 | 11:13 a.m.

Two Las Vegas hotel-casinos are negotiating with major art galleries to bring collections to their properties.

The Venetian hotel-casino is in talks with the Guggenheim Museum in New York while MGM MIRAGE is working with the Phillips Collection of Washington, D.C.

Kurt Ouchida, a spokesman for the Venetian, referred calls to the Guggenheim, which has two galleries in New York and one each in Bilbao, Spain; Venice, Italy; and Berlin.

Gallery officials could not be reached for comment.

The Los Angeles Times reported today that the Venetian has contracted with Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas to develop a 35,000- square-foot gallery adjacent to the hotel parking garage for a Guggenheim branch.

The first planned exhibition would be "The Art of the Motorcycle," a collection of motorcycles that demonstrates more than a century of design evolution, beginning with a steam-powered Michaux Perraux cycle from 1868 to the modern-day Harley-Davidson.

Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry has been asked to design the exhibit.

The Times also reported Gehry and Guggenheim Director Thomas Krens have been in talks with Venetian owner Sheldon Adelson to expand the Guggenheim's presence at the $1.5 billion hotel-casino when it expands.

"The Art of the Motorcycle" was one of the Guggenheim's most successful shows when it was displayed in New York from June 26 to Sept. 20, 1998. Gehry then moved the exhibit to Spain and it is on display in Bilbao. It opened there Nov. 23, 1999, and is scheduled to close Sept. 3.

Koolhaas, who won architecture's Pritzker Prize in April, is expected to complete the gallery at the Venetian next spring. The structure has been described as a concrete and steel container with warehouse-like space and would be a stark contrast to the ornate features of the Venetian architecture.

Meanwhile, negotiations also are continuing between the Phillips Collection, which bills itself as "America's first museum of modern art," and MGM MIRAGE.

Lynn Rossotti, director of public relations for the Phillips Collection, said the gallery is in negotiations for an exhibition tentatively called "Masterworks from the Phillips Collection," featuring between 20 and 30 pieces by several artists, including Pablo Picasso, Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne and Paul Monet.

The exhibit would be displayed at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, developed by former Mirage Chairman Steve Wynn when he opened the Bellagio hotel-casino in 1998.

Wynn left when MGM Grand Inc. acquired Mirage and formed MGM MIRAGE. He has since acquired the Desert Inn hotel-casino, which will be closed later this summer and demolished to make way for a new property.

When Wynn left, he took half his $400 million Bellagio art collection with him and said he plans to open his own gallery at the new hotel property planned for the Desert Inn site. Other pieces in the collection were sold to Wynn and collectors by MGM MIRAGE.

Meanwhile, MGM MIRAGE said it plans to offer a rotating collection of fine art at the Bellagio. The Phillips exhibition appears to be the first such display, although Thora Colot, director of marketing for the Phillips Collection, said the negotiations under way now only address the initial display and do not contemplate a rotation of Phillips works. MGM MIRAGE officials could not be reached for comment.

Colot said negotiations began a few weeks ago when MGM MIRAGE announced the divestiture of the Bellagio art collection. She said when an exhibit would open and how much would be charged to see it are a part of the negotiations.

"I can confirm that we are in negotiations," Rossotti said. "There are no sticking points, just a lot of specific factors that have to be discussed. Things should be completed by next week."

Representatives of the Phillips toured the Bellagio gallery before negotiations began and are satisfied with security and insurance concerns. Colot would not disclose the value of the art to be displayed in the exhibition.

The contract with MGM MIRAGE is expected to have clauses splitting profits based on attendance.

The Phillips Collection commonly loans its exhibits all over the world, Colot said, with one that has been on display in Japan for three years.

An art gallery owner in Las Vegas praised the efforts by the Venetian and MGM MIRAGE to bring major collections to the city.

Jim Stanford, owner of the Smallworks Gallery, said visitors who came to the Bellagio to see that collection often visited some of the city's other galleries, including his.

"It put Las Vegas on the art map," Stanford said. "It brought in a high-quality customer to the hotels and they always wanted to see what was going on in the local art scene. My gallery benefited because it brought qualified art buyers into it."