More Las Vegas

As I visited the Hotels, I became intrigued by some of the over-the-top chandeliers.  This one is in the lobby of the Bellagio.  It is made of numerous handblown glass forms by Dale Chihuly.

This grouping is in the Wynn.

Also at the Wynn.

This one is at the Luxor. It constantly changes colors.

For more spectacular chandeliers, click here.

As I deplaned at the Las Vegas airport, I was greeted by slot machines at the gate! In the 3 days I spent in the city, I encountered thousands of slot machines in casinos and other locations.  But I was not even tempted!

The CASINOS are multi sensory.  There is loud, rhythmic music, the racket of the slots, the ambient noise of people talking, the swirling, flashing and colorful blinking of the machines, and there is the smoke. At my hotel, it was a struggle not to get lost in the maze of the casino floor as I wandered through the forest of machines trying to find my way from the front lobby to the elevator to my room.

I decided that the correlation between smokers and gamblers is that they are risk takers!

I was attracted to some of the designs of the slots, my favorite ones where the wheels.

I only took in one show because there was nothing else that interested me for the cost of the tickets. (I’ve already attended two Cirque de Soleil performances in Orlando.) What did get my attention was a Bee Gees tribute performance, one of my favorite rock groups.  As a matter of fact, just a couple of months ago, I attended a performance in Woonsocket, RI, of another Bee Gees tribute group. The group in Las Vegas features themselves as the Australian Bee Gees and their performance in mimicking the sound, appearance, and attitude of the original members of the group was spot on. They would have made Barry, Robin and Maurice proud!

 

I spent an afternoon checking out an Arts District in downtown Las Vegas.  I was disappointed that I did not find much in the way of studios or galleries, but I did encounter quite a few murals.

I also visited the Fremont Street Experience, a four block long pedestrian mall and tourist attraction in downtown Las Vegas. The area is covered with a 90 foot high barrel vault that contains 12 million LED bulbs that provide for a continuous display of moving and flashing signage and designs. Looking straight up at the flashing lights can make one dizzy!

At the ground level are shops full of souvenirs and rhinestone embellished clothing, eateries, casinos, and entertainment establishments.  On the street are street performers, vendors, hawkers, and panhandlers. A zip line runs under the canopy along its length for the adventurous!

I was there in late afternoon and  got the sense that the place comes alive at night. During the day, there was not much going on other than people taking it all in.

While in Las Vegas I encountered impersonators looking for tourists to take their pictures for a “tip.”  That is why I photographed this Elvis from the back.

These young women wanted $10 each after to took a snap.  They were lucky to get $3.00 each!

That covers my few days in Las Vegas.  I enjoyed discovering the visual appearance and cultural vibe of the place. I’m glad I went, but I have no desire to return. Been there, done that! Next?

I will post about my side trip to the Hoover Dam in my next post.

Las Vegas Strip – WOW

I don’t gamble and I’m not a shopper. I came to Las Vegas for three days to see what it was all about. On my first day here, I discovered that the Strip is all about scale.  The hotel complexes are HUGE. The exteriors are GRAND and OVERSIZE and the interiors are VAST. Lobbies are GRANDIOSE, shopping corridors are LONG and WIDE, casinos are as LARGE as football fields. The spaces are OVERWHELMING and filled with HUNDREDS of people. High rise towers loom above in a BIG sky. The hotels are spaced at least a city block from each other and the major streets are ten lanes wide. And all of this is situated in a flat basin at 2000 ft. above sea level surrounded by Sierra Nevada Mountains about 35 miles away.

All hotels have casinos  (more in next blog) and most have several restaurants, a food court, a spa, wedding salons, many shops, convention meeting rooms, entertainment auditoriums, digital build boards flashing their entertainment, pools and health facilities. The Wynn has a golf course and New York New York has a roller coaster. There are medium priced hotels (under $100 per night) and very high-end, luxury hotels.

I stayed at the Excalibur Hotel with a medieval theme – I was not impressed with the architecture or decor, but it was convenient and comfortable place to stay. It is located at the southern end of the Strip. I was on the 28th floor looking north.

From my window I had a view of the Strip looking north. The main part of the Strip where hotels are located is about 5 miles in length.

This is night view I took from the internet. The replica of the Eiffel Tower is 2 miles away from where the photo was taken.

I satisfied my curiosity on my first day by traveling by bus and on foot up and down the Strip.  I took pictures of the hotels that have the most interesting exteriors and some of the interiors.

This is just part of the NEW YORK NEW YORK complex that fills an entire city block

Not only does PARIS feature a 1/4 size replica of the Eiffel Tower, there is also an Arc de Triumph and extensive wrought iron work canopies at the main entrance in an art nouveau style.

This is the LUXOR. The pyramid is much larger than it appears here.

The BELLAGIO is one of the most upscale hotel complexes.

This is the entrance portico for the Bellagio where there are five lanes for vehicles to drop off and pick up guests.

The Bellagio is famous for its water fountain show in the large pond in front of the hotel. (photo from internet)

The Bellagio has a huge glass enclosed atrium with a display honoring the Indian celebration of Holi, a Festival of Love. There are two 14 foot elephants with blankets made out of 20,000 artificial roses.

Caesars Place reflected in windows of high rise.

This is the canal in front of the VENETIAN. There is also a canal on this interior, second floor. I was very impressed by the extent that the hotel carried out the theme in its architecture and decor. It is large complex of buildings covering about 2 city blocks including a tower and bridge not included in my images.

This is the interior canal with a painted fake sky.

The Wynn hotel had a glass enclosed atrium with festive display made out of paper.

On the right is a sample of a delightful carpet design.

There were many corridors with mosaic patterned floors. This fellow is the official repairer of the mosaic floors.  Below is his inventory of mosaics.

More in the next blog post – stay tuned.

 

 

 

NYC Weekend of Art

I tested out my new knee during a few days in NYC going from one art venue to another.  All went well! Next week I will take my new knee to Las Vegas. Here are just a few of the interesting and delightful art encounters I had in the Big Apple.

I started out at Hudson Yards, a huge development area with high-rise residencies; a large, upscale shopping complex; and a cultural art center overlooking the Hudson River at 34th Street.  I started at the Vessel, an eight story open air architectural (public art) structure.  My knee and my age qualified me to ride the elevator to the top while everyone else climbed the stairs to enjoy the views. (Only 6 people per time on the elevator that only ran every 15 minutes.  The elevator is run by WiFi connection and when the signal is slow, so is the elevator!)

Next to the Vessel is the Shed, the cultural art center where I visited a retrospective exhibit of the work of Agnes Denes, a public artist, philosopher, intellectual, scientist, environmentalist, and draughts-women.  I usually do not relate to conceptual art because I often find the “concepts” underlying the art frivolous, but not in the case of Denes.  She believes that abstract concepts can be analyzed visually and she sets about putting data and abstract ideas into drawings/diagrams.  These drawings are incredibly rendered with delicate ink lines on graph paper, so perfectly drawn that they look computer generated, but they are not.   Finely detailed and labor intensive, she does not make mistakes – no erasing, no white outs!   Along with the drawings are explanations of her ideas, which take awhile to absorb.

In one extensive series, she focused on pyramids and here is one of her drawings.

It appears to be drawn with rows of marks. On close inspection, the marks are figures, about 3/16th of an inch high.  That is small!!

In addition to her drawings, she also has undertaken environmental public art projects.  I was intrigued by a project that she undertook in Finland to reclaim a gravel pit.  She made a Forest Mountain by mounding earth into a mini mountain and then planting 11,000 tree seedlings in a pattern that mimics the arrangement of seeds in a sunflower.  People all over the world were invited to plant the trees and anyone who could not travel to Finland could have a seedling planted for them by a child.  Each person who donated a seedling was given a certificate of ownership for the tree.

Denes’ drawing.

I also visited the complex of shops at Hudson Yards where I found a wall of interactive art created by Lara Schnitger.  The surface of the wall was covered in a patchwork of sequin fabric where the sequins were of one color on one side and another color on the other.  By moving your finger up or down, you can arrange the sequins to make marks on the wall.  The wall was attracting lots of attention.

My marks: PAWTUCKET PUBLIC ART, a committee I chair.

Then I went to visit the newly remodeled and expanded MOMA.  It was a delight to see many of the well known works from their permanent collection displayed in a new way along with many less familiar works.  Three of the floors exhibit work within the time frames of 1880 – 1940’s, 1940’s – 1970’s, and 1970 to the present. Each of these floors have many galleries where the work is curated by theme, such as “Planes of Color,” “Out of War,” “Stamp, Scavenge, Crush,” etc.  It is interesting to see and compare the works of several artists working with similar themes or formal properties. However, there were so many galleries on each floor that it was easy to get lost without a map!  I explored 2 floors and could not absorb any more.  It is a museum to visit and revisit many times!

On another floor were 11 installations created from a variety of media.  I unexpectedly found one of them very compelling. At first it looked like just a pile of junk. But the more I examined it, the more I discovered an order made out of a great variety of things. The variety was intriguing and I found the order whimsical and precarious. Parts of it had lighting, other parts had mechanical movement, even some sound was generated with bubbling water.  In the center was a moving pendulum. I am an artist that creates by arranging shapes, colors, lines, and textures in compositions where the relationships of these elements is important in conveying interest.  I could relate to Sarah Sze’s very deliberate arrangements that look haphazard until one looks closely.

Then I ventured to the Met Breuer, the former location of the Whitney Museum.  On two floors of the Breuer I viewed the paintings and drawings of another woman artist, Vija Clemins.  Here paintings were rendered in gray paint and I did not find them very interesting. On the other hand, her drawings can be admired for their technical skill. Her favorite subjects are the surfaces of rippling water and night time skies.  Using pencil or charcoal, she renders these subjects with compulsive detail.  After looking at so many of her drawings, I left the museum with these images burned into my mind.  I could not help but see ripples and starry constellations every where!

Sidewalk and tree bark along Madison Avenue.

The next museum I visited for the first time was the Neue Galerie, a museum of 20th century German and Austrian art. It is the private collection of Ronald Lauder of the cosmetic family. Two floors were devoted to a retrospective of the paintings and prints of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, an early 20th century German Expressionist. His work expresses the social decay of Germany at that time (1920) as well as Kirchner’s own troubled spirit.  This is one of his best known works depicting a street in Berlin where the well dressed elite are depicted with blank stares and empty souls. (He was influenced by Munch and Van Gogh.)

And then on another floor are the Klimt’s, the best known one is the Woman in Gold. I have seen a number of Gustav Klimt paintings in Vienna, including the Kiss, but the Woman in Gold is perhaps his most glamorous.

I finished up my art adventure with a visit to the Museum of Art and Design where there were two textile shows.  The first featured the fashions of Anna Sui, a designer known for her wonderful combinations of patterns and fabrics, textures and layers.  She was one of the first designers to appreciate the Grunge look when young people were finding and combining thrift shop clothing in unconventional ways. Sui made it her signature look by addressing her style head to toe with headwear, accessories and footwear.  It is a fun, luscious  look!

On the left is a design board for one of her seasons.

Also on view at the museum were the textiles by Vera who believed that designer textiles should be available to everyone and were priced accordingly.  She is probably best known for her lively designs on scarves and linens.

Wrapping up my visit were my rides on the new 2nd street subway. I was staying with my friend, Linda, who lives one block from the station that depicts Chuck Close portraits in tilework throughout.

Next week – Las Vegas!