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ARTventures
Las Vegas is the largest American city established in the 20th century, originally created to provide ice and repairs for the railroad. For many decades, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area has been the fastest growing in the nation. It changes constantly and so does the arts community of Southern Nevada. ARTventures are an opportunity to explore Las Vegas both as a phenomenon and a community. These tours, guided by local experts, show the different purposes art serves in Clark County and how the arts are developing in this area.
Due to overwhelming interest in the Early-Bird and ARTventure bus tours, we can only offer Tour 6 at this time. You are also welcome to check-in on site at convention for availability due to cancellations.
Early-Bird Tours
These tours are provided for disoriented, jet-lagged visitors from the East, who may not be able to sleep until 7:00 a.m. PST (10:00 a.m. EST). Each tour will start at 7:00 a.m. and return to the Flamingo Hilton by approximately 9:00 a.m. You must register by March 16, 2007, for these tours. Don’t let an earlier bird get your worm.
- Early-Bird Tour A: The University as Arts Center
(FULL/CLOSED)
Saturday, June 2, 2007
7:00 a.m.–9:00 a.m.
The University of Nevada Las Vegas is home to Claes Oldenberg’s “The Flashlight” (1981), a 38-foot, 74,000-pound steel sculpture, which some critics call the finest of his large works. “The Flashlight” sits between Judy Bayley Theatre and Artemus W. Ham Hall, which birthed and sustained such Las Vegas institutions as Nevada Ballet Theatre, the Las Vegas Philharmonic and the Charles Vanda Master Series. This tour will present the variety of public art on campus as well as the performing arts institutions and facilities at home there. Limit: 54 participants. - Early-Bird Tour B: Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Performing & Visual Arts
(FULL/CLOSED)
Saturday, June 2, 2007
7:00 a.m.–9:00 a.m.
The school is housed in the former Las Vegas High School building, built in 1931, an historic example of Aztec Moderne, a sub-genre of Art Deco. Students may choose to major in dance, vocal or instrumental music, piano, theatre, theatre technology, visual arts or international studies. Since opening in 1993 the school has placed at the top of its district’s academic program with standardized test scores at the 75th or higher percentiles. The academy has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a New American High School and in 2002 as a U.S. Blue Ribbon School, making it one of only 17 high schools to have received both prestigious awards. The tour will begin at the steps of this historic building with a brief history of the building and surrounding historic neighborhood will be given by Las Vegas historian, Dorothy Wright.Limit: 54 participants
Evening Bus Tours
- Learning from Las Vegas Revisited: Art and Architecture of the Las Vegas Strip
(FULL/CLOSED)
Saturday, June 2, 2007
6:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.
In 1972 Robert Venturi, Steven Izenour, and Denise Scott Brown began to change our understanding of Las Vegas architecture and the city itself with their book Learning from Las Vegas. Artist and Professor Pasha Rafat, who has for many years taught the only class in Public Art at UNLV, will bring that understanding up to the present moment. Pasha will show us one of the world’s most amazing thoroughfares, pointing out its strengths, its weaknesses, its many references and how they work. Pasha will point out unusual views and sites not on the tourist list. Limit: 54 participants. - All that Glitters…the Liberace Museum
(FULL/CLOSED)
Saturday, June 2, 2007
6:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.
Many comments have been made about the Liberace Museum as the height of culture in Las Vegas; here is a chance to actually see the fabulous graveyard of sequins. A museum planned by the master showman himself, Liberace’s legend lives on in the institution, which houses his collections of rare and antique pianos, classic cars, famous sequined and bejeweled costumes, glittering jewelry and rare antiques as well as his private papers and memorabilia. Limit: 54 participants. - The Las Vegas Art Museum – Sahara West Library
(FULL/CLOSED)
Saturday, June 2, 2007
6:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.
Under the guidance of its new Director, Libby Lumpkin, PhD, the Las Vegas Art Museum, has recently gone through a period of tremendous change and success. This tour will discuss the museum’s history and their efforts to build a serous contemporary art museum in Las Vegas. Tour also includes a guided tour of the current exhibitions of internationally acclaimed artists Kaz Oshiro and Sush Machida Gaikotsu (a MFA graduate from UNLV). Tour participants will also be able to view the temporary public art piece “Scarlet Letter” by Alexis Smith on the north east exterior of the adjoining public library. Limit: 54 participants. - Vintage Vegas: Art & Commerce
(FULL/CLOSED)
Saturday, June 2, 2007
6:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.
“Boomerang Modern, Palette Curvilinear, Flash Gordon Ming-Alert Spiral, McDonald’s Hamburger Parabola, Mint Casino Elliptical and Miami Beach Kidney,” are the names Tom Wolfe first assigned the shapes of Las Vegas neon in the early 1960s. While few of the signs Wolfe saw then are still in use, their hulking remains, many fully restored, can be seen in the surreal boneyard of the Las Vegas Neon Museum. The tour will includes stops at East Fremont Street, where some of the area’s oldest neon signs are still in use and the John S. Park neighborhood, one of the areas oldest, where a number of prominent local artists live and work. Participants will tour a home studios and meet the artists who choose to make their careers in the neon-lit world of Las Vegas.Limit: 108 participants. - Las Vegas Treasure: Rita Deanin Abbey Home and Studio
(FULL/CLOSED)
Saturday, June 2, 2007
6:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.
Rita Deanin Abbey is an Emeritus Professor of Art at UNLV, having retired to spend all her time making art. She lives in the Northwest end of the Las Vegas Valley with a stunning view of the Spring Mountains. Her home sits on a carefully preserved piece of virgin Mojave Desert. Her house and studio/museum are architectural treasures. Her property is marked with some of the variety of her work: large abstract welded steel sculptures, gates, and doors. Rita’s output is prodigious, as is the range of her media. She has published five books, and she works in painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, porcelain enamel fired on steel, stained-glass and computer art. This is a unique chance to meet a longtime Las Vegas artist in her live/work space and to see one of the most impressive collections of artwork in the state of Nevada. Limit: 26 participants. - Civic Conversations: The Downtown Justice Corridor
Saturday, June 2, 2007
6:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.
The tour will focus on the Lewis Street between Las Vegas Boulevard and 3rd Streets, site of the legal and justice hub of the city and some of the City’s most impressive and recent redevelopment projects, including the Lloyd George Federal Building, the Historic 5th Street School and the Regional Justice Center. Civic sculpture, such as a Liberty Bell replica and public art, such as the Poets Bridge as well as the annual Book Fair, become the catalyst for community dialogue for the themes they invoke. Limit: 54 participants. - What Happens Here….The Arts in Downtown Redevelopment
(FULL/CLOSED)
Saturday, June 2, 2007
6:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.
Like so many downtowns, Downtown Las Vegas has been declining for decades, its small casinos eclipsed by the massive resorts on the Las Vegas Strip. This tour looks at the role the arts are playing in the redevelopment of the downtown neighborhood, from the Arts District, which was propelled to local prominence by the surprising success of its First Friday celebrations almost five years ago, to the key role a major arts center will play in the development of the former Union Pacific Railroad property, acquired by the city a decade ago. Limit: 108 participants. - Going for the Baroque, Museum and Casino Collaborations: The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum and The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino
(FULL/CLOSED)
Saturday, June 2, 2007
6:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.
This docent led tour will explore both the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas and The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino, with its architecturally faithful recreation of Venice. The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum gallery tour will feature the current exhibition as well as discussion of architectural details such as the interior walls constructed with panels of Cor-Ten steel, which have never before been used. The "Experiencing Venetian Architecture" tour is lead by a trained architecture docent who helps participants discover the history and architecture of "Venice" as recreated by The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino. Limit: 54 participants. - Culture in the Neighborhood: East Las Vegas Community/Senior Center and Winchester Cultural Center
(FULL/CLOSED)
Saturday, June 2, 2007
6:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.
From the Flamingo Hilton this tour will bus eight miles to East Las Vegas Community/Senior Center, run by the City of Las Vegas, then back three miles to Winchester Cultural Center, Clark County’s only cultural center. East Las Vegas Center is a beautiful new facility with newly commissioned public art in front and spacious facilities, including a large ballroom, meeting rooms and ceramics labs. This tour will feature the New Directions YouthArts Program for at-risk youth. Percussionist David Romero will perform with his students, and David DeDera will present Social Circus with youth from Spring Mountain Youth Camp. Winchester Center was built in 1972 as a recreation center and park, then converted to a cultural center in 1990, including a theater, which is used for every kind of music, dance, theater and for art films. The tour will see short performances. The center also has classrooms and a dance studio. Limit: 54 participants.
