Art World BlAck Book
Cosmopolitan artists-in-residence
program cosmopolitanlasvegas.com/
experience/art.aspx
James Turrell Shards of Color
,
inside Cr
ystals; crystalsatcitycenter.com
James Turrell
Akhob
; bookings:
702-730-3
1
50; open Thursday
–
Monday,
11
am
–
8
pm
Marjorie Barrick Museum
4505 S. Maryland Pkwy.,
702-895-3381; unlv.edu/barrickmuseum
Contemporary Arts Center
1217 S. Main St.; lasvegascac.org
Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo
Center for Brain Health
888 W. Bonneville Ave.,
702-483-6000; louruvocenterart.org
Life Is Beautiful
Downtown Las Vegas;
lifeisbeautifulfestival.com
Tim Bavington
Pipe Dream
,
Symphony Park, 361 Symphony Park Ave.,
702-749-2012; thesmithcenter/explore/
the-art; timbavington.com
World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn
Shop 713 S. Las Vegas Blvd.,
702-385-79
1
2; gspawn.com
v
egasmagazine.com
109
The weekday throng at the World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop downtown
is testament to the enduring pop-culture power of Pawn Stars, the reality TV
hit that's been shot there for the last few years. Hanging on the walls, easily
overlooked amid the posters and memorabilia, are scratchy, mostly monochrome
doodles in wooden frames. Peer closely at the labels, though, and their true
value becomes clear: One is an etching by Rembrandt. It's a bargain at $12,000
compared with the piece nearby, a frst-state print from Albrecht Dürer, marked
$64,999. The walls of Gold & Silver might seem an unlikely place to fnd a
haul of Old Masters, but the ad hoc gallery is a pet project for the pawn stars. It
was a combination of cash and cachet that led the shop to hire Chad Sampson
as its frst professional art wrangler last year. He says that pawning art isn't
unusual: "When you need money, the frst thing you sell isn't your car or your
house; it's your paintings." Sampson notes that casino-based galleries need a
300 percent markup to remain proftable. The lower overhead at Gold & Silver
allows him to price major works at up to 50 percent less than on the Strip, and
he focuses on blockbuster names: Chagall, Dalí, Matisse, Picasso. Most of the
works are prints or etchings priced at $10,000 or less; in the past, however, the
shop has sold a Dalí-designed tapestry for $100,000 and even some Picasso
lithographs for $250,000 each.
clockwise from far left: Nancy Rubins's
brightly colored bouquet of boats, Big
Edge, at CityCenter; James Turrell's
Shards of Color, four recessed geometric
shapes backlit in neon, which debuted last
year next to the gateway to aria sign on the
main level of The Shops at Crystals;
Cosmopolitan's self-park garage gets a
dose of certified urban art with Wallworks.
Champagne f lutes were emptied as soon as they appeared, the
crowd's chatter just raucous enough to drown out the back-
ground music. Something about the bash, though, was
off-kilter, as one stiletto-sporting passerby noticed, puzzled.
She was right: The room was full of men and women in animal
accessories—one shunting a gorilla mask up over his forehead
to more easily finish another glass of Champagne.
The reason for such outré outfits was simple: Kerlin called her
zoo-inspired residency "Marking Territory." Huddled inside this
discreet art hub were a passel of the city's cultural heavyweights,
including consultant Michele Quinn; Aurore Giguet, from the
Marjorie Barrick Museum; and Tarissa Tiberti, who runs the
Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art. It's Tiberti who summed up the
subtle approach to art so characteristic of Las Vegas right now:
"You have to take into consideration all the competition for
attention: the marquees, the LED screen graphics, the signage."
Art that screams will be drowned out, she explains, while art
that whispers will eventually earn the right attention.
V
Pawn Gallery
