A few steps forward, a few steps back.
That seems to be my impression around this time every year, looking back on the local art scene. Yes, Las Vegas is growing in size and sophistication, but it keeps stumbling along the way, the tottering toddler not quite up to that long hike across the living room.
Probably the biggest disappointment of the year was the much-predicted closure of the Guggenheim Las Vegas. The Venetian and the Guggenheim called an end to their partnership in the big-box exhibition space designed by Rem Koolhaas, a venture that seemed so promising in 2001. Blame that autumn's terrorist attacks and the subsequent tourist downturn if you must, but do not conclude that Vegas was not ready. Lodging the retreaded Art of the Motorcycle show there for 15 months was simply a lame idea. This was a space that invited inventive installations, and Frank Gehry's chrome swirls were not enough to redeem the bike show.
If the Guggenheim overreached, it might have been in building two museums at once. Koolhaas' Guggenheim Hermitage facility is splendid, but I'd have preferred keeping the more flexible big box, where more than one show might have been mounted at the same time, including those highlighting the collection-sharing of the New York museum and its St. Petersburg counterpart.
By the end of the year, the Guggenheim seemed to have settled in at last, with a new local director and ambitious plans to develop local patronage. And the next show, The Pursuit of Pleasure, could be a winner. But A Century of Painting: From Renoir to Rothko, though studded with striking paintings, is a disappointment. Step up, step back.
The Downtown scene continues to jell, and the First Friday celebrations seem to have shifted away from the jejune quality they had at first. The last few times I've gone, the event seemed more oriented to —well, adults. The Contemporary Arts Collective appears to have stabilized itself as an Arts Factory anchor. Dust Gallery opened to offer a serious platform for local artists. But after two promising shows, the Brünz-Rosowsky Gallery decamped in a dispute with the Factory. The gallery will likely relocate, but its departure was a loss for the Factory and Downtown.
In February, I found myself pleased with a slate of photography shows at the Las Vegas Art Museum, reflecting that the museum seemed on the right path at last. Then it took a U-turn. By the end of the year, former curator James Mann was back. It remains to be seen if he can position the museum as the venue for a provocative theory, "art after postmodernism," or if LVAM will stagnate on the outskirts of the museum world.
Among the year's highlights was the fall lecture series organized by UNLV art professor Robert Wysocki, part of a course he teaches. The program alternates semesters with an artist-in-residence program. Arthur Danto, former art critic for The Nation, guided a packed audience through his vision of an art world freed from art history, a land of a wondrous opportunities for creativity.
And Wysocki is involved in an event that promises to get 2004 off to a rollicking start. He's helped organize the Survival Research Laboratories 25th anniversary show at UNLV's Donna Beam Gallery, opening January 12. The show culminates with a performance February 7 at Sam Boyd Stadium that could be the event of the year. We'll see.
Also on the horizon: The Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art returns to fine form with a mini-blockbuster of Monet paintings from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, opening January 30.
Now, there's two good steps forward. Let's limit the regression in 2004.
Chuck Twardy has written about art and architecture for several daily newspapers and for magazines such as Metropolis.