When going to hell and back, you’ll likely emerge with a few dings, a little more hair on your chest and maybe even a bold new skip in your step as you move forward from the inferno behind you. But what if there’s no entrance and exit, and hell (in varying degrees) is just a shroud cloaking everything on contemporary Earth?

That’s when you find yourself in the “10th Circle,” a hybrid of Dante’s Inferno and Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap, or more specifically, in the David Pagel-curated exhibit, The 10th Circle, opening this weekend at Vast Space Projects.

The eight-artist exhibit, curated by LA Times art critic and associate professor at Claremont Graduate University, aims to present art as something redemptive in this contemporary inferno, a society where relativism is insanely unhinged and out of control. (There’s a reason Jaime Scholnick’s devilish acrylic-and-glitter portraits of Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney are part of the exhibit.)

Also, it brings back to Las Vegas the work of Western Project artists Wayne White, featured in Pagel’s L.A. Now exhibit at the Las Vegas Art Museum (2008-2009), and Brian Porray, who studied at UNLV. Also returning is Kyla Hansen, whose solo exhibit, which tackles end times in contemporary society, is at Kleven Contemporary. Scott Anderson, Erin Cosgrove, Jimi Gleason and Nicolas Shake are also featured in the exhibit.