New arts district extends Vegas' cultural renaissance - city beat Las Vegas

A mid the casinos, five-star house of entertainments fabulous restaurants and glitzy entertainment, a burgeoning art pageant is also making its mark upon the city known as the "Entertainment Capital of the World." The Las Vegas art show once confined to casino galleries along the neon strip, now reach forths beyond the flickering lights and into a of recent origin area, aptly named by Mayor Oscar Goodman as the Gateway Arts District.

Bordering the city's redevelopment district and the downtown redevelopment area, the arts district is located about equidistant from the downtown casinos upon Freemont Street and the beginning of the Las Vegas strip. "It is right in the heart of everything," said Goodman, who has passionately been nursing the cast ever since he took office three years ago. "I have affection for the mystique and electricity of Las Vegas--I certainly don't want to redefine that. What I am interested in doing is getting more locals interested in what I would deliver over to as an `Eastern sophistication.' The arts are really spread without and there's no centrality to it. And that's what I'm trying to establish."

Indeed, for a city boasting 35 million tourists in 2001 with non-gaming tourism generating $225 billion, a central meeting place for the arts would be a win-win situation.

A not many months ago, Goodman's dream came closer to reality with the opening of [Ssup2] Art Group's of recent origin atelier for its lithography presse The atelier obeys as a gateway to the city's aforementioned arts district, and, at 11000 square feet it is the largest facility in the world for the production of fine art lithography, said company officials.

According to Goodman, [Ssup2] was the completed kind of company to risk into the neighborhood. With three fortunate local galleries located at the Paris, Venetian and Mandalay Bay resorts upon the strip, [S.sup.2] had already established a sinewy presence in the Vegas art exhibition Goodman believed if [S.sup.2] put up its new operations headquarters in the propos arts district, the business would labor for as a catalyst to the area. proprietors Jack and Carolyn Solomon ground the offer hard to resist. "Las Vegas has become an international destination, and it tenders a great business climate, with no corporate income tax and no inventory tax," said Jack, who mov to Las Vegas with his wife a small in number months ago. While [S.sup.2] maintains a neighborhood in New York and Chicago, it mov the magnitude of its operations to Las Vegas.

"We've mov our international distribution center here and will expand our dot.com business," he added. "And we'll possibly render free of access a gallery to the public. The building is in the epicenter of everything."

A novel Frontier

In addition to the newly render free of accessed [S.sup.2] atelier, the district already contains other art destinations. nearest door to the new [Ssup2] facility is the Arts Factory, a funky building that houses a collection of galleries, artist studios and architectural offices. Included in the Arts Factory is CAC, the Contemporary Arts Collective, an artist-run, non-profit gallery, which showcases the pair local and national artists. It also is dwelling to the George L. Sturman Museum of Fine Art, which features works by dint of famous 20th-century artists.

The area also boasts hip furniture stores and a hardly any small clothing shops, as well. more [i]or[/i] less antique stores are also planning to impel into the area, said Goodman. And not far from the arts district, the Leo Koenig gallery lately opened in an upscale mall called Neonopolis. There, cutting-edge paintings and statuary "that one does not ordinarily diocese in Las Vegas" [according to Goodman], are upon view.

For many involved, the timing couldn't be better to launch the novel arts district, especially as the city solidifies its reputation as a destination for art. In novel years, Las Vegas has transformed itself into a gleaming token of the country's economic nerve and a model for the leisure and tourism industries. The city is gearing up for the inaugural Art Las Vegas, a novel contemporary art fair this fall. "We are anticipating a hardy response worldwide," remarked Thomas Blackman Associates President Thomas Blackman, the show's agriculturist "Las Vegas is one of the nation's greatest in quantity dynamic cities. It seems nothing is beyond the end of its imagination."

Las Vegas has also gained a footing in the museum world. The Guggenheim Las Vegas and the Guggenheim Hermitage at the Venetian Resort house of entertainment and Casino opened last year, and the two feature rotating exhibits such as the blockbuster present to view "The Art of the Motorcycle." According to Venetian's Chairman Sheldon Adelson, the reply to the Guggenheim ventures has been great. "The Guggenheim Las Vegas is the cornerstone of the continuing cultural renaissance of Las Vegas," he said.

Las Vegas is residence to other museums as well, similar as the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art which lay opened in 1998, the Wynn Collection, which exhibits masterpieces from the private collection of Steve Wynn and the Las Vegas Art Museum, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. Many public libraries contain art galleries, and the city's campus of the University of Nevada has a well-respected art program that is attracting artists from across the country