It’s access, access, access for young collectors

By Kristen Peterson

Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008 | 2 a.m.

When the Guggenheim Museum pulled out of the Venetian this spring, its Young Collectors Council no longer had an outlet.

The group of young professionals had been privy to exclusive lectures, private openings and contemporary collections in Las Vegas homes.

So when Michele Quinn hosted a holiday party at her 1950s-style home last week for the newly formed Modern Council, a well-heeled crowd of young art enthusiasts, collectors, artists and professors gathered ’round the crackers and Brie.

The Modern Council, an “art affinity program for collectors and art enthusiasts” sponsored by the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, picks up where the Young Collectors Council left off. But it has a few added amenities — namely fine cuisine and high couture (Prada’s new collection, for example) — made possible by MGM Mirage, which owns the Bellagio.

“I know that all of these people in this room are looking for things to do, and we have access to what people want,” says Tarissa Tiberti, director of the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art.

Party attendee Shannon Bilbray Axelrod, a former member of the Guggenheim’s Young Collectors Council, says she joined the Modern Council as a way to reconnect with the arts after having a girl.

The group’s first event will be a private tour of “Classic Contemporary: Lichtenstein, Warhol & Friends” led by Hugh Davies, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego. The San Diego museum is providing the works (mostly from the 1960s and ’70s) in the exhibit at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art. The exhibit represents the Bellagio gallery’s shift to mostly contemporary art.

In February there will be a tour of the art collection in the executive offices of the Bellagio.

In March the group will tour a local Marmol Radziner prefab home and its James Turrell “Skyspace,” which alone makes the $250 membership worth it for some. The “Skyspace” — an architectural art installation that opens to the sky — is the only one in Las Vegas.

That kind of access is why members are joining the group. Quinn, who is curatorial adviser at MGM Mirage and owner of MCQ Fine Art, has plenty of access.

The intimate holiday party at Quinn’s home, which she shares with husband Mark Andelbradt, a chef at Tao, set the informal, social tone of the new group.

The Christmas tree sparkled near a Richard Serra print. Guests admired the David Ryan piece hanging above the fireplace — opposite an Olivo Barbieri — and Chico the cat was escorted out the back door repeatedly for trying to sample the brie on the coffee table.