Wynn: Gallery a public service

David Strow

Friday, Oct. 5, 2001 | 10 a.m.

Desert Inn owner Steve Wynn says he's opening an art gallery at the shuttered Las Vegas Strip hotel next month not as a profit-making venture, but in order to share the art with the public.

"This is about people who live here being able to see these pictures. I don't have anything to gain here. This isn't about money. This is about the fact that these pictures should be shared with everybody," Wynn said Thursday.

"I'm going to lose money (with the gallery) regardless," Wynn said.

The 1,000-square-foot gallery in the D.I.'s old gift shop will house 11 of Wynn's personal paintings.

The gallery is located in the hotel's St. Andrew's Tower, one of the north buildings at the D.I. complex. This is one of the buildings that Wynn intends to keep at the resort -- what's left of the southernmost high-rise, the Augusta Tower, will be imploded around 2 a.m. on Oct. 23, Wynn said.

The new resort that will take its place should open 30 months to 32 months later, Wynn said.

Wynn's gallery will also open within weeks of the Guggenheim and Hermitage art galleries at the Venetian. But Wynn said he doesn't consider these to be competition, calling the opening of the Venetian museums "wonderful."

"People who care about art will know about it (Wynn's new gallery)," Wynn said. "I'm not trying to win any races with attendance."

Wynn two years ago spearheaded Nevada's art tax law, which provides sales and property tax breaks as incentives to encourage the display of fine art in the state.

Wynn says his status as an art dealer means he is exempt from the usual 7.25 percent state sales tax on his art purchases.

Still, Wynn says he pays a 2 percent state sales tax on his paintings, the amount called for in the exemption law.

"I made it a point of not taking advantage (of his tax-exempt status) and paying the 2 percent," Wynn said. "That's what I've always done."