Post-modern Guinn

Kristen PetersOn

Illustrations by Chris Morris

LAS VEGAS SUN

Sunday, July 16, 2006 | 7:50 a.m.

Gov. Kenny Guinn and the first lady are to select an artist to paint the governor's portrait. The portrait will hang regally in the state Capitol among portraits of other Nevada governors.

The artist must execute the portrait according to Nevada Revised Statute 223.121, which requires an oil painting, "appropriately framed" and executed in the "same manner, style and size as the portraits of former governors."

To this we ask, why?

Why not get crazy? Why not tap into the assorted art movements that led to modern-day dialogue? Why not Basquiat?

It's true that Willem De Kooning's emotional intensity - launched from his canvases during the 1950s - might horrify schoolchildren visiting the capitol building. But Guinn's Millennium Scholarship Fund could later enable these students to better understand the depths of Abstract Expressionism.

Francis Bacon's distorted realism might be too gloomy to immortalize Guinn's legacy on canvas. Andy Warhol's glamour could come across as insincere and a perpetual mockery of a governorship in the Wild West. But Roy Lichtenstein appeals to many generations and is likely to portray the two-term governor as a clean and determined man who led with wisdom and strength.

Or, why not tap into the photorealism of Chuck Close, one of the most influential portrait artists of our time?

Salvador Dali? Nothing is more surreal than a neon city in a desert. Or Guinn's attempt to broaden Nevada's tax revenue in a state that gloats over its low taxes.

Edvard Munch's anxiety might best reflect the insanity of Southern Nevada's growth, its water shortage and fight over Yucca, while embracing the loss of Nevada's rural ranching communities.

But alas, Susan Boskoff, executive director of the Nevada Arts Council, says, "The discipline of good portraiture can be looked at as historical as well as an art form," and says that the work should represent "gravitas."

However, she adds, "There is still room for the artist to be expressive."

On that note, Chris Morris, the Las Vegas Sun's art director, looks at what might have happened if Dema Guinn had said, "Hey why don't we get that Picasso fella?"