Hotels of Las Vegas

When most people think of star-gazing in Las Vegas, they envision themselves watching a number of celebrities dressed in their finest, cavorting on the Strip. But the Planetarium and Observatory offers something a little more out of this world.

Depending on the time of year and the weather, each session focuses on a variety of celestial objects including the moon, planets, stars, star clusters and other out-of-this-world phenomena. Once the latitude, longitude, time and date are set, visitors are able to see a projection of what treasures the night sky will have to offer on that particular evening.

The planetarium is fairly small, so be sure to get there early as it fills up fast. Also, once the presentation starts there is no admittance.

Whether you’re looking for an educational experience or just something unique to see in Vegas, the Planetarium and Observatory will suit your needs.

The Old Mormon Fort shows how the town of Las Vegas came into existence through faith, hope, determination and the ability to overcome adversity.

It’s hard to imagine now, but Las Vegas, Spanish for The Meadows, once was an oasis in the desert, with free-flowing water and an abundance of lush grass as far as the eye could see. It became a popular resting point for the native Paiute, traders, miners and others passing through the region.

In 1855, William Bringhurst led a group of 29 Mormon missionaries from Utah to the Las Vegas Valley. The missionaries built a 150-square-foot adobe fort near a creek and used flood irrigation to water their crops, a process still used at the park.

However, because of tensions rising between leaders of the small Mormon community, the summer heat and difficulty growing crops, the missionaries returned to Utah in 1857, abandoning the fort.

Over the next 50 years, ownership of the fort would pass from local miner Octavius D. Gass in 1865 to ranchers Archibald and Helen Stewart in 1881 and eventually to San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad in 1902. In 1929, the Bureau of Reclamation used the fort’s ranch house as an office for the construction of the Hoover Dam.

The ranch house, the oldest building in Nevada, contains informative exhibits tracing the area’s history, including a collection of photographs of the fort spanning from 1934 to 1992. The ranch house also contains a pump organ, spinning wheel and butter churner, all used by former inhabitants. Other artifacts found at the fort include an apple corer, cake griddle, rug beater and bullet mold. A replica of the first flag flown over Vegas is displayed along one wall, complete with 19 stars and 13 stripes.

Another exhibit depicts the period when the U.S. Army occupied the Southern Nevada fort (1867 to 1869). Although their accomodations were far from luxurious, they did have a roof over their heads, fresh vegetables, meat and clean water. A reconstruction of the soldiers’ living quarters houses a bed consisting of a straw mattress and blanket, lanterns, ammunition, a table and chairs.

At the center of the fort lies an 1850s freight wagon, similar to those once used to carry supplies and materials to and from the fort. The creek has long since dried up, but a re-creation of it now travels the edge of the property near the ranch house, giving visitors a unique glimpse into the past. Several picnic tables scattered throughout the fort provide the perfect place for an afternoon snack.

The “Garden in the Desert” features the same crops as those grown by both the settlers and the natives of the region. They include Asian pears, Hopi blue corn, Babcock peaches, beets, spaghetti squash, onions, carrots and turnips.

A small gift shop located in the Visitors Center offers a variety of souvenirs, from T-shirts to seed packets for plants found at the historic state park. There also are a number of helpful brochures on the Old Mormon Fort and related history.

The easiest way to describe the feeling you get inside the fences at the Neon Boneyard is to imagine a giant shoe, a shoe bigger than your refrigerator, a shoe bigger, or so it seems, than the tiny space of your first apartment.

Imagine this shoe covered in light bulbs and peeling metallic-colored paint, sitting in the middle of a dusty lot in downtown Las Vegas. Staring up at it, you realize your own shoe, the one strapped to your foot and tied with sloppy knots, isn’t even big enough to be an annoying piece of gum stuck to this giant shoe.

Meet the Silver Slipper. Weighing in at two tons and towering 15 feet high, it’s one of the first indications you’re among giants.

The slipper, a relic from the casino of the same name, and its more than 150 friends make up the Neon Boneyard, which in turn makes up a large part of the Neon Museum, which in turn makes up a Goliath-size chunk of Las Vegas history.

For more than 15 years these giants, most made, appropriately, from some form of neon and collected from across Las Vegas, have been saved from the trash heap and cherished for what they are and what they can do – tell tales of Las Vegas’ past, a tall order, to be sure, in a city known for tearing down the old to make room for the new.

Nancy Deaner, chairwoman of the Neon Museum Board of Trustees, has been part of the effort to preserve Vegas’ neon signs since the late 1980s. Deaner said sometime during that decade, Las Vegas residents were growing concerned that signs were being destroyed, with no hope of getting them – or the history that went with them – back again.

“There’s a lot of remembrance attached to the signs,” Deaner said. “Not just for locals, but for people all over. The signs have their own cachet, they really have iconic status.”

The citizens formed what would eventually evolve into the Neon Museum Board, and with a little help from the City of Las Vegas, began the process of preserving some of the city’s brightest fossils.

For a while, the old signs sat on a lot at YESCO (the Young Electric Sign Company), the company that constructed many of them. Although the signs moved to their current location 10 years ago, their old digs can be seen in scenes from the movies “Mars Attacks!” and “Vegas Vacation.”

As word spread about these neon dinosaurs, nearly 200 visitors a week were stopping by YESCO, said Melanie Coffee, operations manager for the Neon Museum. Unable to handle the crowds and continue their primary business of making signs, the folks at YESCO agreed to move them elsewhere.

“Elsewhere” turned out to be that dusty lot in downtown Las Vegas where they’ve been for the past 10 years and where they’ll be for years to come, hopefully in a setting the public can come by and enjoy.

The Boneyard is currently open by appointment only, meaning you can’t just stop in and check out the sights. But plans are in the works to turn it into an operating Neon Museum (hence the board’s name). Disassembled pieces of the La Concha Motel lobby, one of Vegas’ few remaining odes to Googie architecture of the ’50s and ’60s, sit in the Boneyard today, waiting to be put back together as the museum’s visitor’s center.

The board, and the museum, operate not-for-profit, so any improvements or changes need to be paid for through donations and that money needs to come from somewhere. Deaner said a lot of fundraising is ongoing and the City of Las Vegas is continuing to help out, awarding the project $4.5 million in federal funds to be used to develop a neon park.

And these aren’t just pipe dreams. Deaner said the board is hoping to have things completed in the next year and a half and is confident that people are interested in seeing the museum.

“This is the way we save our history,” she said. “And I think people get it, people all over the world get it. There’s a demand for this. It’s kind of like quintessential Americana. [The signs] really represented what people were thinking about during those eras.”

Signs in the Boneyard run the gamut, with a couple even dating back to the 1940s. It’s a rare chance to see up close what is usually perched atop a marquee or bolted up high on a building.

Letters from signs from many of Vegas’ landmark hotels – the Sahara, the Stardust, the Showboat – are scattered around the property like alphabet soup. A recent episode of the television show “CSI” was shot with a body found on a peg of the “W” from the Showboat sign.

Although the letters can easily be pinched between two fingers when they’re displayed 80 stories up, it’s a different world when they’re on the ground. Paint strokes and individual light bulbs are actually discernible and the craftsmanship that went into things like the hat from the Tam O’Shanter Motel can be fully appreciated. Not to mention that feeling of being surrounded by giants.

As you wander among a chess piece (a knight) taller than most elementary school children and a pool player so large locks of his hair had to be composed from rebar, it’s pretty easy to sympathize with the few clusters of ants that have made their home in the Boneyard. A slot king that can be made headless at a moment’s notice (if you have a crane handy) and a pirate skull bigger than anything in the Caribbean don’t help assuage your sudden inferiority complex.

Plus, the collection is still growing. Unlike the old days when Deaner said they’d have to practically stop signs on their way to the dump, people actually volunteer their signs now, she said.

“When the project first started, we were begging people for signs,” Deaner said. “Now people are calling us. It’s like night and day – now our phone rings. People really want these things saved.”

And a spot in the Boneyard doesn’t have to be just a safe resting place. Depending on who the signs can count among their fans (usually affluent donors), they also have a chance to be restored and displayed once more.

In all, 11 signs have been fully restored to working condition, and 10 of them are displayed in downtown Las Vegas, lighting up every night as part of the Neon Museum goal to literally illuminate the city’s history.

Glowing brightly along the avenues of downtown, the restored signs are a clean, easy way to get a taste of the giants that wait, just up the beanstalk and inside the Boneyard’s fences.

Tucked away on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Natural History is an educational treasure waiting to be discovered.

Tracing the main wall of the museum’s foyer is a collection of some of the region’s oldest inhabitants, live reptiles. A variety of eye-catching desert creatures are encased in display tanks, from the Western Whiptail, Nevada’s most common lizard, to the venomous Gila Monster. At the center of the exhibit is an open-air habitat for desert tortoises.

A large portion of the museum puts focus on the lives and traditions of the Paiute and Hopi Indians. Positioned alongside prints of old photographs are a number of stone tools crafted by Southern Paiutes. Among them are choppers, hammers, scrapers and knife blades.

Also on display are a variety of baskets, including burden baskets, bowling baskets, seed beaters, storage baskets and mush bowls, which all played a key role in the Paiutes’ day-to-day survival. Winter moccasins, made of badger skin and sewn with sinew, often worn by children in colder months, rest near a display of needles once used to stitch soft hides.

An exhibit dedicated to artistry features several Hopi katsina dolls, figurines carved out of cottonwood root by Hopi men, meant to portray numerous spirits. Carrying prayers of health, fertility and rain from the Hopi to the gods, katsinas are both male and female and represent plants, animals, human attributes, the sun and death. Some of the katsinas represented at the museum are Mastop (Fertility), Kwivi (Warrior God) and Honan (Badger).

In another section of the museum, a 72-piece artifact exhibit chronicles the history of ancient Mesoamerica. Among the pieces on display are ceramic baby figurines, a jade mask, basalt statues and an obsidian labret (lip piercing). The artifacts in the exhibit date from 1500 B.C. to A.D. 1519, and multiple societies are represented, including the Olmec, Veracruz, Maya, Aztec and others.

Nearby, visitors can learn about different forms of dress and view examples of the huipil (woman’s blouse), men’s traje (menswear) and various hair wraps. Another display of note contains more than 50 elaborate Mexican dance masks. The collection includes “Negritos,” exquisite black masks decorated with bold red lips and white eyes.

The museum also offers several interactive exhibits, the largest being a traditional upright Navajo loom. Supported by wooden poles, the loom has no mechanical parts. Following the instructions posted nearby, visitors can try their hand at the difficult task of weaving.

Surrounded by a lush desert demonstration garden, the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Natural History offers both a unique and exciting glimpse into the natural history of Southern Nevada and is well worth the trip.

How would you like to take pictures of your shadow, see your friends on TV, sing in a studio, and play more than 100 musical instruments with a swipe of a hand?

At the Lied Discovery Children’s Museum, both children and adults can enjoy more than 100 different interactive science, art and humanity stations.

Even if you found yourself daydreaming during science class in grade school, you’ll be intrigued with all the different stations the museum has to offer. The 22,000-square-foot facility opened in 1990 and is considered one of the larger children’s museums in the country.

The first floor is ideally for children five years old and younger, but teenagers and grown-ups can definitely enhance their science and history knowledge. One of the museum’s feature exhibits is “Torn from Home: My Life as a Refugee.” This showcase gives visitors the opportunity to witness the challenging realities faced by refugee children and their families. The exhibit recreates actual refugee camp settings and includes interactive multimedia and photographs, artwork and testimonials of refugee children from countries like Congo, Colombia and Afghanistan. This showcase will be on display until the end of 2008.

Young ones can also take “make-believe” to a whole new level. They can choose from a variety of dress-up clothes and perform plays on the stage. For some serious playtime, children can work at a bank as a teller and even withdraw money from an ATM. Children can either purchase groceries or work as stock person or a cashier.

Just a few steps away, tots can enjoy “Desert Discovery,” a station designed exclusively for the little ones. This area includes a bedroom and living room, a crawling area and even a mining area where kids get to drop ore in buckets and send it across the “mountain.” Just outside the “Desert Discovery,” kids can romp around at the Toddler Tower, a huge jungle gym offering plenty of space for climbing, jumping, sliding and more.

For those opting to take the stairs to the next floor, there are fun echo tubes to play with. Have your friends listen to you from upstairs as you talk inside the tube.

The upstairs level has exhibits for athletes, music lovers and much more. To put yourself in someone else’s shoes, the Lied Discovery Children’s Museum has a station called “What if you couldn’t?” Visitors can try their best to shoot a basketball through the hoop while sitting in a wheelchair.

Nearby, kids can see how a green screen works and even star in their own mini-movie. The backgrounds constantly change, which makes it interesting to watch each time. For another fun group activity, kids can gather inside a booth and experience a hurricane, with winds blowing up to 70 miles per hour.

One of the most unique exhibits is the ”stringless” music station. This allows you to wave your hand and play more than 100 different musical instruments. By simply swishing your hand back and forth, you’ll experience different sounds each time. Another innovative station is the K-KID in-house radio station. This is a great way for future Hannah Montanas and Zac Efrons to practice and brush up on their vocal skills.

If you want to express all the excitement you experience at the museum, make sure to stop inside the shadow wall booth. Here, you can lose all your inhibitions and do all sorts of goofy poses. High-five yourself. Flash a peace sign. You can do as many poses as you want.

The Lied Discovery Children’s Museum truly brings out the kid in everyone and allows its visitors to appreciate science, art and humanities in a whole new light.

The various exhibits and experiments rotate often, and older ones are frequently replaced with new ones. Birthday parties and group art classes are also available. Please call for more details.

Celebrate the legacy of the decorated (in every sense of the word) pianist Liberace, one of Las Vegas’ most beloved performers, at the Liberace Museum.

Located in a sprawling complex just minutes from the Las Vegas Strip, the museum houses Mr. Showmanship’s treasures, costumes, antiques, and one of the most impressive piano collections you’ve ever seen. And, this is not just another museum filled with dusty relics, the man himself personally opened it on April 15,1979.

The museum is divided into two separate buildings, one holds the piano and car galleries, and the other showcases the elaborate costumes, jewelry, awards, plus a replica of Liberace’s bedroom. Along with a café and a gift shop, the showroom is also located there.

The costume gallery, once a rehearsal space for Liberace, features mirrored walls that allow a 360-degree view of the amazing and detailed wardrobes that are on display. The progression of costumes is portrayed, from a simple gold lame suit to absolutely stunning costumes like the infamous red, white and blue hot pants outfit, the “Lasagna” suit, the “King Neptune” (200-plus pounds of pink feathers tailored for a New Orleans gig) and the Blackglama mink cape with 500 mink tails dangling from it. You will gawk in amazement at the fun fashion sense of Liberace, as the knowledgeable tour guides enthusiastically explain pieces and enrich the experience with stories.

Almost all of the suits are displayed out in the open, only a few are encased in glass, and with the aide of the mirrored walls, visitors are able to inspect the backs of each piece.

Of course, everyone needs the perfect accessories to complete a fabulous outfit, and what better than a collection of diamonds, sapphires and Swarovski crystals. Some of Liberace’s most dazzling jewelry is on display here. Along with many other pieces of breathtaking bling is the piano-shaped ring made of 260 diamonds and the largest rhinestone in the world, weighing in at 150,000 carats.

In addition to the suits and jewelry, there is an impressive collection of monogrammed Moser crystal, miniature pianos, and the most expensive piece in the museum – a Louis XV desk owned by Russian Czar Nicholas II. An avid collector, Liberace purchased the elaborate piece of ornate furniture for a mere $950 from a Florida museum.

Visitors can brush up on Liberace’s life story through the wall of history, located at the entrance of building one, before checking out the impressive display of cars and pianos that awaits inside.

Always one to make a grand entrance, Liberace lived large when it came to transportation as well. The sparkling and lavish display includes cars that are famous for being used in his stage entrances. The bejeweled and mirrored Rolls Royces, a 2.5-carat rhinestone Roadster and a pink Beetle are frozen in time and further add to the illustrious and colorful past of Liberace.

The piano gallery is also located here and is home to 18 rare and antique pianos that Liberace played and collected. Among them, Liberace’s favorite piano, a grand piano covered in tiny glittering mirrored squares.

Although there are some amazing gems from Liberace in the museum, his lasting achievement is the Liberace Foundation. More than $5 million has been awarded to more than 2,200 students. Most of Liberace’s estate went to kick-starting the foundation, and profits from the museum directly support the fund.

“We are proud to continue to share the generosity and legacy of Liberace by way of these scholarships that perpetuate his mission of assisting talented students to pursue careers in the performing and creative arts,” R. Darin Hollingsworth, executive director of the Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts, said.

Liberace’s legacy lives on in the facility. Even if you’ve been to the museum before, you still haven’t seen it all, as there is a storage space filled with memorabilia that is rotated regularly into the displays.

After this fun-filled afternoon, visitors will leave with a sense of joy and free-spirited attitude that Liberace felt everyone should have ….and you might even have a few good ideas for your own wardrobe.

Several league sports, including softball, are available for adults, children and seniors. The facility runs tournaments in these sports every 10 to 12 weeks, and classes are available for those who wish to polish up on their skills. Workshops and classes are available to those at all different levels.

The park also offers indoor soccer, basketball, volleyball, self-defense classes and aerobics. Gymnastics is offered for children between the ages of 18 months and 6 years.

The sportspark is located behind Trent Park in Summerlin, which features a walking track and tennis courts.

Did you know that Las Vegas was once located beneath an ancient sea? It may be hard to believe, but it’s true, and the Las Vegas Natural History Museum proves it in a fun and education exhibit.

The Natural History Museum is much larger than it first appears, housing more than half a dozen unique exhibits. From the African savannah to desert life and Nevada’s prehistoric past, the museum has it all covered.

From the moment you step into the Marine Life Gallery it is as if you have stepped into the depths of the ocean itself. Dark and murky, the room is filled with sharks, whales, stingrays, dolphins and other sea creatures suspended from the ceiling and walls. Numerous aquariums are filled with a variety of fish and eels and there is even a 3,000-gallon live shark tank housing bamboo sharks, Port Jackson sharks and California round stingrays.

An adjoining room features various exhibits on sharks including a shark cage and an exhibit devoted to the great white shark and its ancestor, carcharodon megalodon, including life-sized replicas of each shark’s jaws. Also on display is a collection of items - a shoe, an unopened bottle of wine, soda cans and even a license plate - found in the bellies of various tiger sharks, known for eating just about anything.

Lining one wall of the room are 12 small aquariums housing frog fish, lobster, blind cave fish, a red-eared slider turtle, koi and more. Two more aquariums located nearby contain a shark egg hatchery and a shark nursery.

At the Snake Pit, a large glass enclosure houses a pair of burmese pythons, aptly named Bonnie and Clyde. A size chart over the case shows the lengths of other well-known snakes such as the reticulated python (29-45 feet) and the anaconda (25-30 feet). According to the chart, resident reptiles Bonnie and Clyde could eventually reach lengths of up to 25 feet each.

As you make the move from modern reptiles to prehistoric dinosaurs, you come across and extraordinary display of the phobosuchus, also known as the “terrible crocodile.” Reaching lengths of up to 50 feet and with teeth measuring up to four inches long, the phobosuchus is also one of the oldest alligator ancestors.

The centerpiece of the dinosaur exhibit is a very lifelike depiction of a tyrannosaurus rex going head-to-head with a triceratops. Meanwhile, off to the side, a deinonychus emits a sinister clicking noise at you, never dropping its gaze.

A collection of fossilized dinosaur tracks found in St. George, Utah as well as fossilized dinosaur eggs from the Henan Province in China are on display. All the while, a deadly allosaurus towers overhead as a talarurus guards its nest of hatchlings nearby.

In 1977, the ichthyosaur was designated as the Nevada State Fossil. This was later amended in 1989 to specify the shonisaurus popularis, probably the largest of all of the ichthyosaurs. Reaching lengths up to 50 feet, ichthyosaur fossils have been found on every continent except Antarctica. A notable and fascinating exhibit has been dedicated to the “lizard fish” within the museum.

Another museum section details prehistoric sharks including the heliocoprion, scapanorhynchus and stethacanthus in addition to numerous prehistoric whales.

Adjacent to the Dinosaur Gallery, the Young Scientist Center provides a hand-on learning experience for museum guests, young and old alike. From unearthing fossils of starfish, amphibian skulls, shark teeth and clam shells in a sandbox to observing a paleontology lab, there is always something waiting to be discovered.

Down the hall, the Wild Nevada Gallery includes plant and animal life indigenous to Southern Nevada. The exhibit is highly interactive, allowing you touch coyote fur and smell the scent of a badger. Scattered throughout the Wild Nevada Gallery are a series of headsets with recorded information on cacti, desert survival and medicinal plants. The room is also home to lifelike renderings of bighorn sheep, coyotes and a black-tailed jack rabbit as well as other desert animal life.

Another room plays homage to mining in Nevada and features numerous fluorescent minerals including sodalite, fluorite, celestite and calcite. On display are rocks and minerals found in Nevada such as sulfur, gypsum, pyrite and turquoise.

The Out of Africa exhibit is located downstairs. It features the white rhinoceros, water buck, hippopotamus, cheetah, spotted hyena, wart hog, zebra and lion. Nearby, an African rain forest display uses sound and light to give visitors a unique view into this extremely unusual environment from the forest floor to nocturnal habits and of course, rainfall.

Outside of the museum, a small outdoor patio area overlooks the Old Mormon Fort providing a great spot to take a lunch break or just relax. The museum is quite expansive and thorough, so a little rest may be just what you need. And don’t forget to pick up a souvenir or two at the small gift shop on your way out.

If you have children, you will, at some point, end up at the Las Vegas Mini Gran Prix. Deny it all you want, but you should just give in to that fact now. It will cause more stress only if you resist. Either your own offspring or one of their friends will insist on having a birthday party there, and as a doting parent, you must deny your child nothing. Of course, if you don’t have children, you’re more than welcome to join in the mini-racing experience. Just prepare to step over, around and between the little ones.

Quite frankly, as far as kiddie birthday parties go, Las Vegas Mini Gran Prix has it all. Inexpensive food, picnic-style tables, an extensive arcade, a Super Fun Slide, a mini-roller coaster and three styles of miniature race cars. Go Karts are available as you race against folks who were once your friends until they “accidentally” bumped into you on the track. We must warn you not to get too carried away, as those unassuming teenage staff members are watching your every move and have the capability to “pull the plug” on your car should you get too unruly on the track.

Next up, try the Sprint Karts. Even though the back of each car states “No Bumping,” don’t be surprised if that innocent looking kid cuts you off at a turn or rams into the back of your car. This car race gets pretty cutthroat with quite a few spinouts. One of the safety features of the Sprint Karts is that when one car spins out, all the other cars automatically slow down and stop, if necessary. Once the heroic pit crew gets everyone facing the right way, your car starts up again and you’re ready for some harmless road rage.

If you’re 16 — IDs will be checked — you’re able to run a time trial in the Gran Prix Cars. Basically a race against your own time, and without fear of interference from other drivers, you’re allowed two laps to run the winding track without spinning out or running into the tire bumpers. Good luck with that one.

Overall, the Las Vegas Mini Gran Prix is a child’s dream. Underage driving never has been more appealing.

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.