As MGM Resorts’ executive director of arts and culture, Tarissa Tiberti oversees a collection of more than 800 works of art across the company’s many properties and handles programming for the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art. Now, MGM has expanded its portfolio to include more artists from under-represented communities, the Weekly spoke with Tiberti to learn more about MGM’s mission to amplify these voices, and how she approaches curation.

Why is it important for MGM to diversify its art collection, and why now?

We’re diversifying the collection to reflect the makeup of our guests, our employees and the communities in which we exist. It’s very important for us as a company to encompass all three of those areas. We’re committed to ensuring that our deeply held beliefs around diversity, equity and inclusion continue to be reflected in our operations, and that feeds into our art collecting mission. Art provides a visual way we can showcase that commitment.

It must be nice for tourists to walk into one of your properties and see art from all over the country—or from overseas.

Absolutely. The collection is international, as well as representational of the states. Our National Harbor [Maryland] collection is very much focused on the region. There’s an incredible amount of diverse artists in that region. We have Sam Gilliam, who’s a mid-career artist, and it’s fantastic to have his works. Then we have a local artist, Martha Jackson Jarvis, [who worked] with materials that were literally from the ground that the property was built on.

How do you go about matching artworks with appropriate properties?

Locations are carefully considered for each new artwork. The final choice must allow the context of the work to speak for itself and enhance the work without providing any unsolicited input.

Obviously people are moving throughout our buildings all day long, in many different fashions...Some may go grab a coffee, some may walk into the conservatory, some may go into a restaurant and sit down and dine. So we’re giving them these opportunities to walk amongst these artworks as if it’s a walking museum.

A walking museum. Can you give an example of how that works?

The selection for Ghada Amer is two different artworks. They’re from the artist’ series The Women I Know Part II, and they each have a single female figure. They’re at the check-in desk at the [Bellagio] salon, behind the salon representatives who are checking you in... They’re just beautiful. They’re colorful to look at. There’s embroidery on there. There’s so much going on. You’re checking in, but you’re also looking at the artwork and the subject of the artwork is gazing back at you.

There are works by Pablo Picasso hanging in the Bellagio’s Picasso restaurant. Some people may never have had the chance to see these otherwise.

We’re very cautious and deliberate about how we do that ... There’s no [fine art] museum in Las Vegas, aside from the one at UNLV. To be able to have works of this caliber out in public for people from all over the world to see, and especially for Las Vegas residents [to] have these works here ... it’s a great opportunity MGM has to offer.

In your 14 years of working with MGM, can you pinpoint a piece or a series that you’re particularly proud of getting into the art collection?

Jonathan Lyndon Chase. We actually bought [his work] last year. … It’s an exciting piece, and I love the location. It’s called “The Cook Out.” It focuses on the nuances of the queer Black life ... these vivid portraits showing the subjects in various aspects of domestic life. It’s hanging at Park MGM, near the pool. There’s a lot of life and energy in that building, and I think the piece is really dynamic and it fits the location without even trying.

Where did your passion for collecting come from?

I got my master’s in sculpture, so I come at this from an art background. I have construction and interior design in my family. I think about the whole space; even when I was making art, I couldn’t stay on the paper, it was on the walls and everywhere else.

When I’m curating at the gallery, it’s much more about how people are moving through a space and experiencing it, and remembering that people are coming from all different walks of life and different time points in their life. That’s so important to remember when you’re looking at artwork. You have to look at the artist, where they’re from, their age, and put yourself in that context, whether it’s Picasso making work in 1930 [or] an artist of the same age today. Looking at those works side by side, it may still be a portrait, but the artists come at them with such different backgrounds, and you can see that in the art.

Tour the art of MGM Resorts

Rashid Johnson Cosmic Slop series, on Aria’s Promenade Level

Sanford Biggers “Oracle at Aria,” near the resort’s self-parking entrance

Ghada Amer pieces from The Women I Know Part II, at Bellagio’s Spa & Salon

Jonathan Lyndon Chase “The Cook Out,” adajacent to lobby at Park MGM

Tomás Esson “Quimera” and “Anestesia,” outside of the Bellagio Conservatory and in the resort’s VIP Lounge respectively

Svenja Deininger “Untitled” at Aria’s Carbone restaurant

Derrick Adams Floater series at Park MGM, near the resort’s pool entrance (commissioned and currently in construction)

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