DAILY MEMO: CULTURE:

Give the arts community time to grow

For its relative youth, city is making progress

Friday, Sept. 12, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Henderson museum plans taking shape (5-20-2008)

The term “arts in Las Vegas” is fodder for many jokes that involve the word “oxymoron.” But maybe the dichotomy isn’t so much between “art” and “Las Vegas” as it is between those telling the jokes and those wincing at them.

Let’s begin with this: Las Vegas doesn’t begin to measure up to New York or Chicago or other older, wealthier cities in a contest of high culture.

It does make efforts to narrow the culture gap.

Here is what we know:

• Consultants came to Henderson this year to study the possibility of building a museum. The city is moving forward with a plan.

• The Smith Center for the Performing Arts is to break ground in January.

• The Las Vegas Art Museum brings in innovative contemporary exhibits even as it waits to build downtown.

• Metro Arts formed this year to streamline arts funding and marketing.

• The Nevada School of the Performing Arts has moved into the Fifth Street School and began classes last week.

• Las Vegas has these established gems: the Marjorie Barrick Natural History Museum, the long-running Charles Vanda Masters Series, the Lied Discovery Museum, the Black Mountain Institute, the Vegas Valley Book Festival and the libraries/cultural centers created by visionary Charles Hunsberger, who was library director in the 1980s. It also has the Las Vegas Philharmonic.

All of this is fairly new, of course. When New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870, Las Vegas wasn’t a city. The New York Philharmonic was founded even earlier, in 1842. The Art Institute of Chicago has roots going back to 1879.

When esteemed museums in those cities were fattening their collections in the past century, Las Vegas was scratching out a reason to exist, eventually entertaining America with the Rat Pack, neon and dinner deals.

The people of New York and Chicago and Boston knew something two centuries ago. It takes a community to have an arts community. They supported fledgling arts.

Many Las Vegans are doing the same today, with mixed results. “Las Vegas Diaspora: The Emergence of Contemporary Art from the Neon Homeland,” a Dave Hickey-curated show at the Las Vegas Art Museum, drew international interest but only 4,000 visitors during the three-month exhibit. And that was one of the more popular shows.

Everybody, it seems, wants the Neon Museum to open. Not everybody is willing to help fund last-minute operations to rescue the signs, which overcomes the process of meeting the museum’s long-term goals.

Gallery owners in the Arts District want residents to come downtown, but don’t keep their galleries open daily because there isn’t enough foot traffic.

Downtown boutiques and home stores that closed their doors were of no lesser quality than those in other cities. Las Vegas Paper Doll was a testament to that. Lynn Peri Collection had a wide range of sophisticated, unique and arty collectibles, wall hangings and furniture, but not enough customers.

Las Vegas is a young city with a crowded, underfunded education system, a mostly commuter university, a large hospitality industry and a growing number of young professionals — many transplanted from older cities.

William Fox, writer, scholar, former executive director of the Nevada Arts Council and author of “In the Desert of Desire: Las Vegas and the Culture of Spectacle” (University of Nevada Press, 2005) says Las Vegas newcomers still have a cultural allegiance to where they came from. Some give to the arts in other cities, their former cities, but not their new one.

“As generations turn, we’ll have more patrons here,” Fox says. “It takes a long time for patronage to grow up.”

Just how long is up to us.

Editor's note: This story has been changed to correct an error. The story originally stated that the Nevada School of the Performing Arts is scheduled to move into the Fifth Street School, but it already has moved into the Fifth Street School and began classes last week.

Discussion: 2 comments so far…

By PatriciaLV

9/12/08 at 10:02 a.m.

Suggest removal

Not a criticism, just a suggestion: Perhaps you could include some links to information on how people can contribute to some, any or all of the organizations you've mentioned.

We also have to understand that Las Vegas isn't a 'city' as most who've moved here from, e.g. NYC & Chicago, are accustomed to. Rather, it's a fractured collection of subdivisions. There is painfully little "community" in these subdivisions (even the ones with the HOAs).

Another aspect we need to consider is the type of person who moves to Las Vegas. What's the motivation to make the move? Is it employment-related? Relationship? A change of scenery? IOW, you probably aren't going to get very many top-tier art patrons moving to Las Vegas.

We need to focus on the teens & twenty-somethings but not to the exclusion of everyone else. My husband and I (forty-somethings) lament weekly that there just isn't much to do here in the Valley if you're our age. We've tried First Fridays, but they really need to work on "how to put on a street fair". (Aside: Who do I contact to help? I lived in NYC for 40 years; we know street fairs!) We tried Fremont East; same result: twenty-somethings. We look like we're the parents of the band!

Much of the entertainment that could be considered "age-appropriate" for us is kind of expensive (as it is in other cities), though there are many "bargains" to be had. We've been to several shows on the Strip and while it's fun hanging out with tourists, it's just not what we're looking to do regularly.

The major feasts and festivals are held outside the Valley (or at the edges of the Valley - e.g., Lake Las Vegas) and unless you have no home obligation (children, pets, etc.) it's not an easy trip to make. Then you have to factor in the climate (outdoor festivals aren't terribly feasible for perhaps four months out of the year) as well as transportation to the current arts area downtown - parking is NOT an easy task. (Never thought I'd say that in Las Vegas!) And reliable public transportation is virtually non-existent.

Sadly, we aren't left with easy answers. I give many, many kudos to the people who work so tirelessly day after day, week after week, to get an "arts movement" going in this Valley. That has to be one of the most difficult jobs and they are a kind of "unsung hero".
By Mgriesgraber

9/12/08 at 10:40 a.m.

Suggest removal

Good News! There is a "new" museum downtown.
The Southern Nevada Museum of Fine Art will be opening at its new downtown location on September 25, with a members-only reception from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., thereafter, it will be open to the public from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday. The Museum, located on the second level of downtowns’ Neonopolis, is adjacent to the new Southern Nevada Center for the Arts.
The Arts Center will contain dozens of working studios for local artists. Painters, potters, sculptors, fabric, mixed media and art jewelers are just some of the media work of the artists who have already rented space in the new Art Center. The public will be be able to browse the Art Center, and meet with artists and purchase their work.
The Museum will showcase a variety of artistic styles and periods. The first exhibitions include “20th Century Modern Masters: Works on Paper", “The "Barbizon School " of paintings and works by internationally acclaimed Polish artist, Andrzej Gieraga. Museum admission will be $3 per person, children under 12 admitted free with accompanying adult.
In addition, a Museum sponsored exhibit entitled "Neo Action Abstraction" will be featured in the main gallery of the Southern Nevada Center for the Arts. The exhibit includes several local and regional artists who work in this free-flowing style. Abstract paintings by Palermo, Jenik, Constantine, Bailey, Wardle and Griesgraber build upon the works of earlier abstractionists, while adding their unique identity.
With the combination of the Southern Nevada Museum of Fine Art and The Southern Nevada Center for the Arts the Neonopolis is certain to become an important center for the visual Arts.

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