LAS VEGAS — Maybe she likes blackjack and he prefers Bach. Or perhaps he enjoys mahjong while she adores Monet. Or maybe she thinks he wastes far too much time and money in casinos while he thinks she’s way too obsessed with “Wicked.”
Either way, you can’t blame Las Vegas for your divorce. And it definitely won’t justify those separate vacations. Not anymore.
The city that seems to redefine itself on a dime has done it again. There’s a new destination in the West: Fine Arts Las Vegas.
The city’s evolution into a serious arts mecca began picking up real momentum two years ago with the opening of , the 76-acre casino/hotel complex with buildings by famous architects and an art collection worth millions. And it certainly got a boost in February when the Bellagio casino put 20 original Monet paintings on display in its Gallery of Fine Art.
But the sure sign was the March debut of the Smith Center for the Performing Arts, a $470 million home for the Las Vegas Philharmonic, , visiting cabaret performers, jazz musicians and Broadway plays.
It’s a game changer, and not just because it’s the sort of high art fortress the residents of Las Vegas have never seen. With its posh lobby and swanktheaters, it’s an irresistible draw for a different kind of Vegas visitor, the sort who might amble to middle American cities, like Dallas or Chicago to see serious design or high culture.
In some ways, the downtown center keeps that Vegas feel. Like those monumental strip casinos, it is over-the-top in its appointments. Marble walls meet marble floors, doorways are adorned with eight layers of trim. It’s swank enough that a 19-foot chandelier looks perfectly in place hanging over the auditorium, as does the giant, winged bronze angel that stands guard at the stairway, as does its six-story carillon bell tower, a new shape for the already interesting downtown skyline.
The center is a rare object in the high-tech age, a full-fledged art deco building. Designertook his inspiration from the only bit of vernacular architecture he could find: Hoover Dam. And in that art deco way, every single detail is completed. The lights, the furniture, even the trash cans are custom-made for the space, centered on the 2,050-seat Reynolds Hall.
But the Smith Center is also a welcome departure for Las Vegas and brings with it the kind of boost that makes an art scene worthy of outside audiences. The best example: the Nevada Ballet, which is commissioning new works to perform in its new home and switching from recorded to live music, thanks to the presence of the Philharmonic in the same space.
The Center’s series takes the city in a new direction, as well. No metropolis has more shows than Las Vegas, but there hasn’t been a comfortable home for sophisticated performers like Barbara Cook, Andrea Marcovicci and Jane Monheit until now. All three are on the cabaret’s premiere season, presented in an intimate, 3,800 square-foot room with tables and chairs on the first level and close, U-shaped balcony above.
Add in a few swell lounges, a well-groomed courtyard and a versatile black box theater and there are plenty of reasons to see what’s playing at the Smith on your next Vegas visit.
The Smith Center is also a good reason for travelers to escape the crowded strip and head downtown. The trip can be a haul by taxi (and $40 if you tip the driver well), but there are things to see now. The , with its $70 million light canopy, is a sensory overload, but surely unique, and the new is a lot of fun. Yes, it’s devoted to the history of organized crime, and a little gruesome (you can have your photo taken in an electric chair), but its well-done and tells a good story.
If your focus is on the finer arts though, there are plenty of legitimate options. The high-end tourist is wise to start by checking out the Smith Center’s calendar, but there’ no reason to stop there.
More info: 361 Symphony Park Avenue, thesmithcenter.com or 702-749-2000.
Breaking it down
First Friday: Plenty of cities celebrate the of every month with art galleries showing off their best wares. But they’re not like Vegas where things have gotten extreme.
There are some cultural politics at play here. Local artists are out to prove there’s more to the city than casino culture and their messages can be very clear: last month the party culminated with an ad hoc bonfire where a showgirl was burned in effigy. Yikes.
But it’s a great party, full of music, entertainment, food trucks and positive energy as well as more traditional art offerings. The action is centered on Casino Center Boulevard, between Colorado Street and California Street, but it rambles a bit from there.
It starts at 6 p.m. and ends at midnight, but go early if you want to park. It’s a madhouse, in all the right ways.
More info: . You can there.
Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art: This is serious. No, really serious. Twenty Monet paintings on the walls of a casino.
The Bellagio says its is “where great art goes on vacation,” and that’s how it stacks up. The casino borrows work from established institutions and repackages it as a bonus for guests. Impressionist scenes of the French countryside can seem a bit out of place in a city of slot machines, but there they are, haystacks and fields of flowers and frolicking children, and somehow it all works.
The Monets come from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and they are surrounded by works from other masters, such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Camille Pissarro. They are a bit crammed in and under glass, but there’s a good set of audio recordings that provide context. With a solid history of high-end shows from Picasso to Warhol, the gallery knows what it is doing.
“Claude Monet: Impressions of Light” runs through Jan. 6, 2013. General admission is $15 with deals for seniors, students and military. Kinds under 12 are free.
More info: 3600 Las Vegas Blvd. South, 888-987-6667 or online at bellagio.com.
CityCenter: The are vast. So vast a little artist name-dropping will tell the story: , Frank Stella, Henry Moore, Jenny Holzer, Nancy Rubin. Need more? No problem: Claes Oldenburg, Coosje van Bruggen, Jun Kaneko, Masatoshi Izumi.
We’re not done yet. Now, for the architects: Daniel Libeskind, David Rockwell, Rafael Viñoly, Helmut Jahn.
A casino/hotel/condo complex has to go a long way to brand itself as more than a poker parlor and CityCenter has succeeded by taking the high, high road. It’s slightly insane — too much of a good thing? — but strolling through CityCenter’s shops and hotels is probably the best fine arts afternoon in the state of Nevada. It doesn’t replace the Las Vegas Art Museum which closed in February 2009 because of financial difficulties, but it’s free.
You will either appreciate that all this art is in spread out over 76 acres on the Vegas strip or you’ll find it tiring. But a little adventure pays off here.
More info: Citycenter.com for an overview. Contact hotels individually. A good locator address is the Aria hotel at 3730 Las Vegas Blvd.
The Cosmopolitan: The resort, which opened last year, gets points for showcasing the most interesting, or at least the most innovative, art of all the casinos. It’s worth a visit.
Again, the works are scattered about, and you have to pass by shops and gambling rooms to see them, but again, they’re free and high-quality. The Cosmo does two things right. It’s committed to video art, which isn’t traditional, but fits in well with a city where lights are known to flash and signs are meant to move. It commissioned a piece from artist Leo Villareal and has shown works by T.J. Wilcox and Yoko Ono.
It has also experimented with performance art. It’s P3 Studio houses installations with artists doing their thing for the public. Last month, it hosted an exhibit by artist Leor Grady who set up a laundry room and basically ironed. Sounds odd, and it was, wonderfully so.
More info: The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, 3708 Las Vegas Blvd. South. 702-698-7000, or cosmo politanlasvegas.com.
Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540 or rrinaldi@denverpost.com
