King of all things vintage, kitschy and camp

Steve Marcus

Todd VonBastiaans, sitting in his gallery/lighting business, is exhibiting this month the work of Las Vegas artists who created “Drunk, a Comic About Bar Stories.” His next exhibit will feature dream proposals by architects, designers and engineers.

By Kristen Peterson (contact)

Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Name: Todd VonBastiaans, gallery owner, art collector

Age: 37

Education: Bachelor’s in theater, St. Mary’s University of Minnesota, in Winona

Day job: Owner of Alios, a lighting company involved in architectural and entertainment lighting.

Gallery owner: VonBastiaans, king of all things vintage, kitschy and camp, moved to Las Vegas from Los Angeles in 1996. Three years ago he created Obstacle Art, a mini-golf course in which local artists designed elaborately themed holes. Shortly after, he opened the Atomic Todd gallery to show his friends’ work and collections that nobody else was going to show. It featured collections from the Burlesque Hall of Fame; “99 Cents Only Dress Shop,” couture made of items from 99 cents stores; and “In Bed With Liz Renay,” paintings, household items and performing accessories of the actress, model, writer and convict — an exhibit so notable that it went to Deitch Projects, an art gallery in New York.

New space: The November exhibit at his new gallery, Alios, at 1217 S. Main St., which also houses his business, coincides with the Vegas Valley Book Festival and features the work of Las Vegas artists who created “Drunk, a Comic About Bar Stories.” His next exhibit will feature dream proposals that would most likely never come to light, thought up by architects, designers and engineers.

Art projects: For the “Stop and Glow” ACE transit stop project, VonBastiaans created a series of illuminated Las Vegas pool shapes, a reference to vintage Vegas and comment on the valley’s gamble on water. His solo exhibit at Trifecta Gallery featured dioramic sets placed on vintage TV lamps. His sculpture, a critique on our country’s patriarchal monuments, placed first in an art show this year at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada.

On collecting: His diverse collection of local, national and international contemporary art includes artists such as Kehinde Wiley, Takashi Murakami, Casey Weldon and David LaChapelle. “I always liked art. The second I could start to buy, I did.” His first purchase was a portrait of a hot-dog-cooking appliance by Marty Walsh. “Then it just exploded; I went obsessive compulsive.”

Getting started: When he was 18 months old, he says, his mom dropped him off at the baby sitter’s and didn’t return, leaving him in the care of mostly drunk residents of the Rogers Park neighborhood on the Chicago’s North Side. As a child, VonBastiaans learned to fend for himself, making money through odd jobs, and enculturated himself at free days at museums. He performed for patrons at a bar where his baby sitters — “grandma and grandpa” — spent their days drinking. There he did his homework, roller skated around the bar and danced to songs of the day.

When “The Wiz,” starring Stephanie Mills, came to town he worked the bar over for money — running errands, dancing — and made enough to take himself and his “grandma” to the show. Someone stole his money, but he had made his foray into entertainment. “I think as a little kid you always want to escape. I had definite reasons to escape.”

When he was in fourth grade, a family adopted him and raised him in the suburbs.

Local art and culture? “We were on a good run. It was a depressing year. We lost the art museum. Now we’ve lost CineVegas. We’re losing all these things that take money, time, dedication and people ... People should be more involved. Instead of lamenting the loss of Enigma (a coffee shop and writers’ hangout), let’s do it again. We should have lots of Enigmas.”

Living in Las Vegas: “If you can make it through the first year, it’s a great place because you find things. At first, you’re bombarded with so much big stuff that it takes a year to find the other stuff. But you find Hugo’s Cellar. You find the Pinball Hall of Fame. You find Larry’s Great Western Meats” — where he goes every Friday to buy Delmonico steaks. VonBastiaans lives in the older Glen Heather neighborhood and spends much of his time downtown. “I don’t see a neighborhood in a master-planned community. I just see houses.”

Other interests? Travel, roadside attractions.

Sticking around? Yes.