Looking up: Downtown art ‘gallery’ is in the sky

Monday, Nov. 20, 2000 | 10:20 a.m.

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a palette!

Between now and April more than 5 million people are expected to have visited the latest art gallery created by the Las Vegas Department of Leisure Services.

Chances are, most of them won't realize it.

Thirty banners embossed with works of art created by 30 local artists are flying above Las Vegas Boulevard South, from Charleston Boulevard to Fremont Street.

"In a 24-hour period, approximately 30,000 cars travel that part of the boulevard. By the time the exhibit ends, 5 million cars will have passed," Senior Cultural Specialist Richard Hooker said.

That is, assuming the exhibit lasts for the run of the show.

Critics can be hard on works of art, but the wind can shred them to pieces.

"We don't know how durable the banners will be against the wind," Hooker, who came up with the art-in-the-air idea, said. "Assuming they don't become a maintenance problem, our intent is that they be up for six months."

The Aerial Art Gallery exhibit began Oct. 19. It consists of a series of 3-by-6-foot banners (made of heavy duty "banner vinyl") hanging about 15 feet in the air, attached to poles on curbs on the east side of the boulevard.

"We call it a 'mile of art,' " Hooker said.

Artists were invited to exhibit two of their creations, one on each side of the banner (Adera Corp. transferred the art onto the banners). The poles from which the art work hangs once supported lights, but when the city moved lighting to the center median it left the poles for displays.

"I think we're the first agency to take advantage of them (for art)," he said.

The Cultural and Community Affairs Division of the Department of Leisure Services is sponsoring the exhibit. "Initially, we thought about putting the banners only in the art district (around Charleston and Casino Center boulevards)," Hooker said. "But this expansion makes the arts more visible downtown."

It is part of the city's continuing effort to give people what many of them say doesn't exist in Las Vegas -- culture. He believes these are great times for artists in Southern Nevada.

"We have a mayor championing the arts downtown, trying to bring more of a cultural face to the city," he said. "We received a call the other day from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. They're about to begin a national campaign to promote Vegas from a cultural aspect of the city."

The Solomon R. Guggenheim and the State Hermitage Museum of Russia have announced a joint venture to build a museum at the Venetian. The Bellagio currently is displaying art from the Phillips Collection of Washington, D.C.

"We have to remind people we live in an art landscape," Hooker said. The artists exhibiting their work in the air are professionals who are on the Arts Commission's artist registry.

"We wanted diversity in terms of medium," Hooker said. "They're not all painters -- some are photographers, sculptors, even poets."

A number of the banners contain poems.

Local writer Len Adams Dorris has a banner on the corner of Charleston and Las Vegas Boulevard, which opens the project, Hooker said. "It says, 'Stop waiting for art.' "

Attorney Dayvid Figler also has a banner poem which reads, "Las Vegas, steadily erasing history since date unknown."

Lorna Green, a poet, sculptor and actress, has provided a poem for one of the banners entitled "Belch of the Jackpot."

While banners are routinely used for advertising, Hooker said he doesn't know of any other time original art work has been displayed in this manner.

"We may look at it as an annual project," he said. "In some ways this is an experiment for us. We need to see how durable the banners are."

The public has not turned a blind eye to the art.

"We've had a great response," Hooker said. "There have been lots of calls with comments by motorists and pedestrians.

"Our intent is to provide visibility to the work and to bring more art to the environment."

Kathleen Nathan, one of the 30 artists with work flying high in the outside gallery, is happy about the exposure her work is getting and with the support the city gives to artists.

But she is concerned about the general public's lack of interest in art, and is "taking a hiatus from it" until she can regain her enthusiasm.

"It's discouraging trying to sell art here," the photographer said.

Nathan moved to Las Vegas from New York 14 years ago and became one of the first graduates of UNLV with a Master of Fine Arts degree. Since then she has tried to help build a community of artists but said, "I don't know if it can happen."

While the Nevada State Council on the Arts and the City of Las Vegas are supportive of arts and artists, the public is more supportive of gambling and entertainment, she said.

"There is so much competition here," she said. "People want to go see 'O' or win a million dollars. They're too busy to look at an art show."

Nathan's work is especially interesting, Hooker points out. She takes pictures of plants and animals without film or camera. She places flowers, insects and other subjects directly on photograph paper, exposes the paper and a black-and- white picture is made.

Almond Zigmund, another New York native, also has a banner in the gallery. And she also is unimpressed with the local public's interest in art. She isn't taking a hiatus from her sculpting, but she is leaving Las Vegas.

Her decision to leave was based upon a job opportunity in New York, not the lack of opportunity for artists here -- although, she said, "In the larger picture, maybe that was part of it. Maybe that would feed into it."

Zigmund came to Las Vegas more than three years ago to get her master's degree in art at UNLV. "I wanted to be on the West Coast and thought (Las Vegas) would be interesting," she said. "And it proved to be interesting."

But not interesting enough to stay.

"Las Vegas has got its pros and cons," she said, "But, personally, being from New York City, I'm used to a more culturally enriched atmosphere."

The announcements about Guggenheim, Smithsonian and other icons of culture coming to town are interesting, but Zigmund isn't sure about the significance.

"It's hard to tell," she said. "How much is the name just an attraction? How much will it really enrich the community as opposed to just being another attraction on the Strip?"

She noted that things might be changing locally, but since most of her time was taken up with school, she may not have seen the things that are available.

"I really didn't search it out," Zigmund said, "but I feel Las Vegas still is kind of lacking."

She feels strongly connected to the area's community of artists. "But it's difficult for an artist to survive here, to flourish. It's a great place to live and make art, and there is lots of work for individuals in casinos."

But, earning a living solely by one's art may simply be pie in the sky.

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