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Las Vegas gets a Guggenheim museum 4/4/01
Take the road across the desert,
head straight on, cross the railway
track, and then, like a mirageż The
Doge's Palace, St Mark's Square, a
jewel of European culture. Except
this isn't Venice, it's Las Vegas, built
not on water, but gambling. But the
city of slot machines is more than it
seems at a glimpse. Alongside the
casinos and strip shows, there will
soon be its biggest gamble yet. A
vast new gallery complex, the Las
Vegas Guggenheim. An internationally
renowned museum here? Is the idea
as barmy as it is brave?
On the one hand, it's exciting that
there's more museums. On the other
hand, I am fearful of what the result
will be. There's not enough Picassos to
go around. It really is like the McDonald's
of art museums, when you have shows,
basically, you're just filling space.
But Vegas likes a challenge. Beneath
a forever dusky sky, at the Venetian
hotel where the galleries will be
built, the gondoliers sing. This is the
Grand Canal, on the second floor!
This city is built on fantasy, an oasis
of escapism in the dry Nevada Desert.
Now it's taking another leap of imagination,
trying to reinvent itself as a centre for
fine art. But for a city built on the profits
of the roulette wheel, is it a dream too
(PRESIDENT, VENETIAN HOTEL, LAS VEGAS)
This is a magical moment for culture
in Las Vegas. Even the word "culture"
here sounds like a confusing concept,
so we have to put our best foot forward.
Goldstein found space for his new
hotel, by blowing up that old icon of
old Vegas, the Sands Hotel. In the
1950s, it was the haunt of Sinatra and
his rat pack, and the Mafia too. Then,
the city was about jackpots, not Jackson
Pollock. Now, gambling accounts for
only a third of its income, and that's
falling. Vegas has developed diverse
new attractions, from luxury shopping
to spa treatments. The people transforming
the city say gambling is on almost no-one's
It's a total fallacy to think that this town
is driven by gambling. If you ask the
average Las Vegas visitor why they
come, nine out of ten wouldn't mention
Want to bet on that? So, ladies, why are
you in Vegas?
Shopping and losing money in the casino.
Actually, we've made a few dollars.
UNNAMED MAN 2:
Been in a lot of casinos!
Would you be interested in going to see
an art gallery while you are here?
No, not me!
UNNAMED MAN 2:
I'm not really into art. My idea of art are
my Marvin the Martian animation cells
Would you be inclined to see any art
while you are here?
UNNAMED MAN 3:
We have been to Madame Tussaud's.
UNNAMED MAN 4:
An art gallery?
UNNAMED WOMAN 2:
It might be nice.
It's this rather more positive reaction the
Guggenheim Museum is betting on. From
their Frank Lloyd Wright HQ in New York,
one of the world's richest charitable arts
foundations in the world is throwing its
money around. It's become unashamedly
commercial and expansionist. Its director
told Newsnight why they are trying to
(DIRECTOR, GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION)
If you combine the concept of expanding
the museum idea within the physical
definition and space, taking on Las Vegas,
reaching a wider audience, and maybe
having a strong revenue stream to boot,
one asks why hasn't anyone else gone to
Las Vegas before us?
Under Krens' leadership, the Guggenheim
has grown from two museums to five.
One's the extraordinary Frank Gehry
masterpiece in Bilbao, in Spain. Worldwide,
the foundation has tripled its attendance, to
nearly three million a year. Then there's
Vegas, some within the art world are crying
"McGuggenheim". They claim it's becoming
a world brand, behaving more like a
corporation than a museum. Michael Kohn
deals in modern art in Los Angeles. He
trained at the Guggenheim, and has supplied
I suppose a criticism of McDonald's, and
this is what one would want to say about
the Guggenheim, is that the price is right,
but the quality of what they serve is not
very good. Those qualities the Guggenheim
risks adopting, by spreading itself too thin.
All of a sudden, you're in the business of
creating hamburger stands. That's not true.
It's an entirely false criticism or accusation.
It's not about establishing a Guggenheim
flag on a foreign shore. It's about bringing
content into the curatorial and intellectual
Krens has picked the radical designer,
Rem Koolhaas, to bring off the transformation
of Vegas. The Dutch architect is famous
for his spare, chic buildings. At the Venetian,
he's designing not one, but two galleries.
This space will hold a small collection of
paintings, mainly European masterpieces.
Then there's this, a far bigger gallery,
some 70 feet tall with walls of steel.
You will come into the Guggenheim Las
Vegas, right off of the hotel escalators,
elevators and the casino entrance. In terms
of the strategy and capturing traffic, we
speak in business terms of capturing traffic,
this is along the beaten path. You will find
your way, and make the time to get to this
section of the hotel.
Design students are sure to come here.
But will anyone else? The space being created
here and in the other gallery, totals more than
70,000 square feet. That's absolutely enormous.
They reckon to break even, they'll need to get
3,000 people a day to both exhibits, at $15 for
each one. There's no shortage of potential
customers, around 15,000 of them a day come
here to the hotel's casino. But how will they
persuade people to move on from poker to
Picasso? There is some evidence from the
hotel up the road, the Bellagio. Styled too,
to look like something out of Italy, its founder
first brought fine art to Vegas. The hotel gallery
now hosts touring exhibitions. When we filmed
here at 9am, it was already getting full. It gets
1,000 people a day, at $12 a time. It's estimated
15% have never been to an art gallery before.
The pictures are sure-fire crowd-pullers, that's
(DIRECTOR, BELLAGIO GALLERY, LAS VEGAS)
We will be more populous. We probably
wouldn't be able to take the chances of, say,
the Sensation Exhibition at the Brooklyn
Museum of Art, which was so controversial.
We are most likely stay within the boundaries
of a comfort level that the average visitor
would enjoy. Museums have missions to
educate, and open new fields to their members
and visitors, by exhibiting space within a resort
like this. Our mission is very, very different.
In other words, to entertain tourists and make
money. The Guggenheim has shown, in its
own way, it can be populist too. Its exhibition
on motorbikes drew huge crowds in Bilbao
and New York, and will open the main Vegas
space in a presentation by Frank Gehry. The
museum has just had a show on Armani
clothes, reportedly by a donation from the
If you're going to be an art museum, you
have to show art. If you want to say that
motorcycles are art, I guess. They can start
selling it to whoever they want. It makes
them look terrible at the end of the day. They're
clutching at straws, trying to find something,
elevate it, in other words, sell it to the public
as culture, whether it is or not.
You have a Gehry installation in a cool house
space. I think we can improve on the
presentation of the art of the motorcycle, which
I see as an interesting and valid metaphor for
the technological and social development of
the 20th century.
Yeah, right. More to the point, perhaps, bikes
are bound to be a blockbuster in Vegas. It's
the fastest growing city in the US. 35 million
people visit each year, the Guggenheim is
after just a tiny slice of that. Vegas is doing
its best to attract a more discerning tourist
from the outset. So far, it's managed to recreate
itself as Paris, ancient Egypt, and New York.
Where else? And now there will be a flavour
of Russia. Joining the artistic invasion of
Vegas will be masterpieces from one of the
world's great museums, the Hermitage in St
(DIRECTOR, HERMITAGE MUSEUM, ST PETERSBURG)
Going to Las Vegas, I was saying it's maybe
my socialist education, we always learn and
bring art to the masses. I went to Las Vegas
where I began to discuss it. It's partly
gambling, but it's where you have the middle
class, a lot of people who are open for art.
The Hermitage is loaning some of its best
works to the Guggenheim, which will put
them on show at one of its new galleries in
Vegas. It's a financial lifeline to an institution
which, after years of neglect, is said to be
more threatened now than at times of war or
revolution. The deal means it gets a stack
of dollars from visitors in Vegas to add to
its uncertain supply of roubles back home.
It is urgent, because we need to develop.
It isn't urgent in a way that walls are falling
down. To develop, one needs money, new
projects and new ideas. With new ideas,
money comes. When you have money, money
comes to money. That's how it works. That's
a very new Russian attitude, but what's
happening in Vegas is novel in so many
ways. The Russians and Americans are
united in their desire to make money through
art. The bigger picture, to actually bring art
to Vegas, is fuelled by the belief it's good
business. It's what the customer wants, if not
the arts establishment.
It's called entertainment, and that may make
the purist gasp. But you have to pay respect
to people coming here, and recognise they
are not unsophisticated, and not without
leisure time, and they are not without dollars
in their pocket. They want to explore and see
new things, that's why things are happening
in the art world today. For those who can't
handle that, sorry.
Forget the traditional role of museums to
educate and challenge. The new rules mean
art follows the dollar, and you can show
almost anything, anywhere, as long as people
will pay to see it. Vegas has seized the
moment, and its remarkable cultural
expansion could make waves beyond the