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For more than 50 years the Las Vegas Art Museum has been the Southern Nevada community’s premiere fine art museum. Beginning with a small group of visionary community members who founded the Las Vegas Art League in the 1950s, the museum has grown and transformed into a facility with a dedication to present works by emerging and internationally recognized contemporary artists.

Once located in historic Lorenzi Park, the museum now has an 8,000 square-foot facility that is adjacent to the Sahara West Library, approximately 10 miles from the Las Vegas Strip in the Summerlin community. The Summerlin location is temporary as the LVAM is currently looking to purchase land and build a permanent facility for the museum.

While the current museum space maybe temporary, the LVAM’s dedication to displays top exhibits and expanding it’s contemporary collection is not. Under the leadership of Executive Director Libby Lumpkin (Lumpkin came on board in 2005), the LVAM has focused its efforts, actively seeking accreditation while mounting a series of noteworthy contemporary shows.

Recent exhibits at the museum have included a survey of Southern California Minimalists, including Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, and James Turrell; solo exhibitions by artists Michael Reafsnyder, Martin Mull, and Cindy Wright; a comprehensive survey of Roy Lichtenstein’s prints; an exhibition of models by the architect Frank Gehry; the three-dimensional paintings of Kaz Oshiro and an exhibition curated by art critic Dave Hickey featuring artists who studied with him at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The museum’s current exhibit is “Las Vegas Collects Contemporary” presented by City National Bank. This exhibit features works of contemporary art on loan from Southern Nevada’s most important privately held fine art collections. Artists featured in the show include Jean-Michel Basquiat, Uta Barth, Dan Flavin, Andreas Gursky, Michael Heizer, Damien Hirst, David Hockney, Donald Judd, Jason Martin, Takashi Murakami, Ken Price, David Reed, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, Venske & Spänle, and Andy Warhol and many others.

“This exhibition provides an opportunity to peek inside the outstanding private collections in Las Vegas,” says Lumpkin. “Contemporary art has become the focus of collecting for many of Las Vegas’s most high-profile citizens, who have been very generous to allow LVAM to borrow works of extremely high quality and importance.”

According to Lumpkin, the exhibition provides an overview that reflects the sophistication of Las Vegas collectors, with works by established masters of contemporary art along with examples of edgier pieces by emerging artists.

“The works on view represent only a tiny fraction of the works available in the collections, many of which are too precious or monumental in size to be transported to LVAM,” says Lumpkin. “This exhibition only hints at the scope of Las Vegas collections, but it is an impressive hint.”

In addition to exhibits, the museum also works in collaboration with the Clark County School District to foster the artistic development of local youths.

A nearby gift shop provides visitors with the opportunity to take home a work of art of their very own.

With emphasis on contemporary art along with its own diverse exhibitions, the Las Vegas Art Museum continues to enrich the Las Vegas community.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 5:42 pm and is filed under Las Vegas Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.