Story Archive

Art so perfect, it's painful

At its best, Ronk’s advanced technique achieves drawn-up perfection

Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009

Grayson Ronk's graphite drawings are so exacting in their faint precision, to look at them is almost painful.

Drink in "Drunk" art

Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009

Drunk is the perfect pit-stop for boozy tortured artists.

Turning the page

Altered States takes an age-old object—the book—in bold new directions

Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009

Altered States takes an age-old object—the book—in bold new directions

Landscape exhibit pairs perfectly with Springs Preserve

Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009

Everything about Robert Beckmann: Elemental Landscape dovetails beautifully: luminous landscape paintings, the Big Springs gallery at the Springs Preserve, a breezy October morning.

Camp Rodriguez Dead or Alive: sci-fi, elephant tusks and ... John McCain?!

Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009

Ominously lit and oddly campy, Dead or Alive, You're Coming With Me has a darkness that gives way to a playful sense of humor, sharp sociopolitical interest and a cool ’80s reverence.

Beautiful integration

12 + 7 demonstrates CityCenter’s synthesis of art and architecture

Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009

12 + 7 doesn’t reveal much—the exhibition plays its cards close to its chest, although we appear to be getting one helluva public art collection.

Anniversary present

CAC, UNLV’s MFA program team for flawed and fun twentytwenty

Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009

How might a nonprofit contemporary art center kick off its 20th anniversary season? How about sharing the love, embracing the edge and inviting young artists to put on a show.

Drawn in?

Moszkowicz’s New Work succeeds at root but feels haphazardly presented

Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009

Emanuele Sferruzza Moszkowicz. With so many consonants and so little time, the name says it all. That beautiful collection of letters is redolent of the artist’s pen-and-ink drawings, a multitude of exploding shapes and patterns that fill the eye and tickle the imagination.

Murals and more

Hispanic Museum’s Mix It Up serves up sweet street flavors

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Hispanic Museum’s Mix It Up serves up sweet street flavors.

Digital integration

Anfinson applies software to her work, with mixed results

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Now, with swift manipulation, not only can Sarah Palin’s face be seamlessly Photoshopped onto the body of Ted Nugent, but a photograph can also be shifted to look like a painting. This is all rudimentary Photoshop, but where does it leave a painter of images?

Time of the Preacher

Pep Rally offers an early look at an arriving local artist

Thursday, June 11, 2009

As the Biscuit Street Preacher, Las Vegan Robbie Martin is a self-appointed, Southern-bred missionary casting a working man’s eye to the streets. In Pep Rally at Trifecta Gallery, the Preacher uses large-scale paintings to evangelize the everyday, sometimes with quite fantastical results.

Neonopolis Art Center: Gone, but maybe not forever

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Amid rumors of poor ventilation, no air conditioning and canceled leases, the once-promising Art Center at Neonopolis is officially closing.

Vegas was built for this

Off the Strip brings performance and video art right where it belongs

Thursday, April 16, 2009

It has always surprised me that there isn’t more performance and video art being made in the Valley—it seems such a perfect fit.

Center yourself

Spend some time with Allred’s sculptures—and their surroundings

Thursday, April 2, 2009

You might be tempted to drive by Left of Center Art Gallery & Studio—it doesn’t look quite like your typical Las Vegas gallery (whatever that is).

Housing new hope

Ambient Art launches new exhibition site with Pairs

Thursday, March 19, 2009

When one door closes, so they say, another door opens. In this case, the door opening is that of Ambient Art Projects.

Stripmuse

For some artist transplants, Las Vegas provides as much inspiration as it does frustration

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Just when you think you know all there is to know about Las Vegas, you turn a corner and find something—or someone—new. In our deceptively tiny but ambitious art scene, fresh faces and ideas are a curious thrill, especially those that are hard to read.

Step into "Yo Mama"

Pepe invites Las Vegas to be part of her latest feminist exhibit

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Yo Mama is a thought-provoking bear hug of a show enveloping us in its big, beautiful vagina.

A love-in with Friends

Bellagio’s latest exhibit reminds why the masters are just that

Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009

Let’s be honest: All of my boyfriends are in the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art’s Lichtenstein, Warhol & Friends exhibit.

"Seeing" is believing

Donna Beam exhibit serves up West Coast funk flavors

Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009

The individuals assembled for You See are Left Coast art gods, key players in one of the many cultural shifts that erupted in California during the 1960s and ’70s: West Coast funk.

R.I.P. Water Street Gallery

Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009

A not-so-gentle reminder to support your local arts institutions: Adding to the recent list of shifting tides in the Valley’s art community is the closure of Henderson’s Water Street Gallery.

"Pleasures" in paint

Britton packs meaning into seemingly guilty pop

Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009

Jeff Britton’s collection of paintings at Trifecta Gallery, Guilty Pleasures, is funny, saucy, irreverent and pop-y—sort of.

Now we're talkin'!

Pagel brings the best of LA to town with magnificent results

Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008

As if on cue for the holiday season, the Valley just got the best present ever: the Las Vegas Art Museum’s LA Now.

Flexible methodology

Pagel’s lecture reveals his thoughts on LA Now, future artistic trends

Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008

David Pagel’s December 11 lecture, timed in conjunction with the opening of LA Now—his newly minted curatorial effort at the Las Vegas Art Museum—was everything his writing portrays him to be: democratic, conversational and genuinely in love with art.

Home work

Vegas product Tiberti returns with exhibit that looks good enough to eat

Thursday, Dec. 4, 2008

Visiting Tarissa Tiberti’s 3% exhibition at the Fallout Gallery, the phrase “you can’t go home again” is hard to shake. Especially considering home is a landscape in constant flux.

Won over by sparkly things

A critical analysis of the Liberace Museum

Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008

I cried at the Liberace Museum today. It was the story of Liberace’s final performance at Radio City Music Hall that did it.

Capital ideas

Jewelers exhibit contemplates ‘sex appeal’ of the political moment

Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008

Artforum writer and California College of the Arts instructor Glen Helfand recognizes the whiff of desperation and the spit-shine of nostalgia in our declining empire.

Scotland and a guy from Cleveland

Guess which show didn’t disappoint? (Hint: the one that has nothing to do with haggis)

Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008

I have a nostalgic soft spot in my heart for two things: Scotland and Derek Hess.

In vacuum

Catherine Borg explores the terror of empty space

Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008

Catherine Borg’s new exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Collective is scary. It’s called Untitled, the perfect name for an exhibition that relentlessly tackles the immense terror of nothingness.

You have to keep making things happen

From gallery owners to administrators to artists, strong women are keeping the arts scene vital

Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008

In the seven years I have bounced around the Las Vegas art community, two things have remained consistent. One is that it is always “burgeoning.”

Fall A+E Guide: Visual Arts

Thursday, Sept. 11, 2008

Technically, it’s fall. While we may not experience the gentle turn of seasons, we are no exception to the “Hey, it’s fall! Let’s put on some fancy art shows!” vibe of most cities.

Badasses with heart

Local art handlers show off their own work

Thursday, July 3, 2008

The art handlers who work for MCQ Fine Art are badass—according to the postcard for their group show. The Difference Between Making a Living and Making a Killing is hardcore, and there’s even a skull and crossbones to prove it. Don’t let the act fool you, though.

More than Skin Deep

Cigarettes and guns trace the enigmas of masculinity

Thursday, June 19, 2008

In case you haven’t been paying attention, it’s cooking up to be a stellar summer for art in Vegas. The list of solid shows that are open or about to open around town keeps getting longer. Add to that list Thomas Lee Bakofsky’s “What It Is,” on view through June 27 at Trifecta Gallery.

The party's over

A haunting glimpse at Coney Island's post-spectacle landscape

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Like on the Strip at sundown, fairy dust cast by the general fabulousness camouflaged any cracks, creaks and crumbling facades.