Where does the Godt-Cleary name come from?
The first word, when you pronounce it properly, is a Belgian word that translates to "good." And then, Cleary sounds like "clear." Glen Schaeffer [Mandalay Bay CFO] and I, when we were thinking about the name for the gallery, we thought, Oh, the Good-Clear Gallery. We were just trying to come up with something rather than putting his name on it or my name on it. And for better or worse, people remember it. So that's where that came from.
Do you see Godt-Cleary as more of a gallery or more of a store?
Definitely more of a gallery Downtown, which is one of the reasons why we renamed it Projects. What I want to do is expand the programming, more so than what we've been able to do at Mandalay because we have more of a retail environment down there. So we've tried to take a more traditional gallery approach Downtown, so our exhibition program is more concentrated on one-person shows and things like that.
You and Naomi Arin of Dust Gallery are starting a forum in January?
We're trying to come up with a Third Thursday forum programming, so the first month, hopefully, a collectors forum with local collectors, including Glenn and some other people in town. Naomi's talking with some curators from New York to bring them in to talk about just the idea of curating, and then I have a good friend who's a very good, successful modern dancer in New York. She's going to do a performance here in March, probably around a Richard Artschwager piece, but we haven't really gotten that far, yet.
So, the work at Projects is going to be different than the other gallery?
It's not necessarily different. We're still working with the same core group of artists. After Dennis Hopper, we're going to have Rauschenberg, which is very much in line with the same artists that we've been showing at Mandalay, it's just that we don't have to worry so much about the retail presentation. As you can see, we're more of a traditional gallery here. We don't have all the shelving and all the products.
Is there going to be any room for local artists?
Well, I think Naomi and Dust do a very good job showing local artists, as well as younger artists. How we try to define our core group of artists is as mid-career to established, blue-chip artists. There really needs to be a concentration in terms of what galleries do, otherwise you do tend to lose your identity. I think that people will know that when they come here, the artists are already established, have already proven themselves within the exhibition programs, and people are already collecting them, so that's the main focus of who we're going to show. And they do a great job, and it's great that we're next door to each other, that we don't need to compete with each other. And it also shows a range of work for the Las Vegas community. I think the benefit of the two of us here together shows a really good, strong presentation of different types of work.
Do you think there's enough traffic on Main to sustain Projects?
You know, we won't necessarily be living off the traffic like we do at Mandalay, but I think, what I've found, even working in Soho, you can build your awareness and your core audience without having to have daily interaction with hundreds of people. I think that First Friday has proven itself to bring hundreds of people Downtown, and I think that's something that we really wanted to make sure we were a part of. I think that if you get people into your gallery once a month, you've already proven yourself successful, so that's a great start. First Friday almost gives you the benefit without having to have the daily traffic.