If you want to view the apocalyptic battle between good and evil, Henderson may be the perfect location. Robert Beckmann, artist and longtime Las Vegas resident, contemplated the burgeoning neon megalopolis dispassionately until a torrential wall of water filled the Las Vegas Wash. Then images of biblical retribution danced in his head, and the idea for the Vegas Vanitas series was born.
Referencing neo-classical and romantic paintings from an age when artists dealt with epic subject matter and moral issues, Beckmann’s paintings seamlessly combine these borrowed images with those of the Las Vegas Strip to create modern allegories of hubris and folly. Is he posing serious questions about the wisdom of building a city in the desert or doing an exercise in postmodern appropriation?
With “Death of the First Born” and “The Fifth Plague” (both based on works by J.M.W. Turner), Beckmann slyly delivers a warning. In the former, New York-New York forms a visual counterpoint, the Statue of Liberty’s raised arm seeming to mock the lowered arms of a grieving mother stooping to lift her shrouded child. The hotel gleaming in the distance looks untouched by tragedy until you notice the weed-covered roofs (not quite the final scene from Planet of the Apes, but making a similar point). In the latter painting, Moses stands with arms outstretched beside the wreck of a Ford Pinto, which Beckmann wittily substitutes for dead livestock exterminated by the plague. Beckmann departs from the Turner original by using his own studies of dramatic Nevada skies, where shafts of golden sunlight break through the clouds to gild the gnarled branches of a lone tree and cast a glow on the distant Strip. His viewpoint is from the Las Vegas Wash, his personal connection to which makes it the most deeply felt painting in the Vanitas series.
Additional drama would have been superfluous in “Renewal.” Based on a Wright painting of roman fireworks, it shows the implosion of the Dunes sending flames and sparks into the night sky. Whereas the Wright painting celebrated the installation of a new Pope, Beckmann celebrates making way for the new Bellagio hotel; and, in the context of the other works, these representations of entertainment for the masses look a lot like apocalyptic destruction. The apocalypse is clearly on Beckmann’s mind despite the bland title “City Planner,” as evidenced by the work it references—Poussin’s “John on the Island of Patmos,” in which John is pictured in the foreground writing his apocalyptic visions amid the rocks and rubble. (In the first century Saint John was banished to the island for preaching about Jesus.) The Bellagio lake and Strip hotels in the background take the place of the Aegean Sea and distant Roman Empire. John predicted the end of the Roman Empire and the world as he knew it. Is Beckmann predicting the end of the world as we know it?
If Beckmann sees the Valley through an art-historical, political lens, Tom Holder sees the Valley, particularly Death Valley, with a colorist’s eye. Where Beckmann is wry and cerebral, Holder is sensuous and intuitive. I’ve written about Holder’s paintings before in these pages, but this time two works were new to me—“Song of Three Seasons,” a triptych of vertical striped canvases in vibrant colors, and “Azawatz,” a symphony in shades of yellow. Beckmann’s paintings require thought; Holder’s only require you surrender yourself.
Photographers Gary and Susanne Reese, like Beckmann, are worried about natural and man-made destruction and the loss of Western civilization. They’re folks on a mission—hiking, climbing, enduring frigid temperatures to photograph subjects off the beaten path in order to remind viewers what might disappear through neglect or ignorance. The Plaza Gallery is an excellent showcase for their work. My favorites are “Time Travel Goldfield Buried Treasure,” by Susanne, and “Truck and Courthouse in Snow,” by Gary. The former is of a folk-art-painted car buried nose-down in the snow, which serves as a marker of the human will to survive and have fun while doing it; in the latter, an abandoned ’39 Chevy has the color and scratches reminiscent of an abstract-expressionist painting. In fact, Gary used pigments, not ink, to create the print. The Reeses are ardent documentarians of rural Nevada who bring an artist’s eye to the task.
We have more reason than ever to visit old Henderson, a place that played an important role in Nevada history, now trying to reinvent itself as a vibrant tourist destination.
Vegas Vanitas
Through December 15
Recent Paintings by Tom Holder
Through December 31
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Water Street Gallery, 155 Water St., 253-0800
The Photographs of Gary and Susanne Reese
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Plaza Gallery, 223 Water St., 438-4278