There is more to Las Vegas than casinos and second hand smoke, thankfully. The casinos have been collecting some impressive public art, although there's some less impressive ones too. I'll admit the fiberglass rodeo rider at the airport was not a good start, but the two enormous Richard Long mud paintings made up for it. Seventy two feet tall! They were four stories tall and as fresh and vibrant and present as any I've seen. The Turrell installation, in a shopping mall no less, was another welcome respite from glitzy casino floors. See the link to the Huffington Post review of the Turrell project below.
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Richard Long – “Circle of Chance” 2009, River Avon mud on painted wall (Veer Towers West), 72 x 54 feet
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Richard Long “Earth” 2009, River Avon mud on painted wall (Veer Tower East), 72 x 54 feet
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| James Turrell, at Crystals in Las Vegas |
Julie Baumgardner wrote about Turrell's Vegas project this past summer for the Huffington Post. "..But working like this is a challenge for me because I don't usually work in spaces so public with all kinds of other distractions," he continues. And the three-hour light cycle work, seen through four cut-out windows (aperture), that change color every 20 minutes, a frosted Wide Glass LED screen and ceiling-cutout Space Division, is, in essence, a portal to the Vegas City Center. The Turrell experience actually houses the Crystals' station of the monorail, a spaceship of sorts to a city compound that is rather alien to any other metropolis in this country. It is certainly unexpected, and Turrell adds, "People coming upon situations that are accidental are the most interesting because we're not really looking for something -- and this tries to take advantage of that kind of situation."more