Dennis Oppenheim on a Las Vegas aesthetic, the mystique of art-making and those giant paintbrushes
Dennis Oppenheim's Paintbrush Gateway is slated for completion this fall: two 45-foot tall steel paintbrushes have already been planted along the sidewalk on East Charleston Boulevard. One brush rises from in front of a dilapidated Siegel Suites franchise at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard, while a second brush sits four hundred feet west in front of the Brett Wesley Gallery and across from the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC). When completed later this fall (there have been technical setbacks), the paintbrushes will emit beams of rainbow-colored light 2,000 feet into the sky, creating a "gateway."
Gateway to what? Irony, perhaps. The Paintbrushes are meant to signal a gateway to the downtown Arts District - but the $750,000 project funded by the City of Las Vegas Arts Commission dwarfs the budget of all other arts activity here combined. The Contemporary Arts Center, now the city's most prominent visual arts organization, is nearly insolvent. Paintbrush Gateway frames an "arts district" that receives virtually no public (or private) funding, and can't do much to present the arts or arts education to the community.
The New York-based Oppenheim was a controversial choice - many local artists produced strong proposals - and the arts community has been critical of his concept. But if the project fails, this will be because it is a monument to misplaced priorities. Will an "arts district" even exist in a few years?
The paintbrushes are currently in place, but are awaiting realignment and programming of their lights. The nightly light display that will begin this fall should be spectacular and visible across the valley. During the daytime, the paintbrushes don't assert themselves among the clutter of utility poles and signage along this busy stretch of Charleston. So Las Vegans will have to wait and see what happens at night - though, did anyone consider that most people visit the area before sunset?
Regardless of whether the commission was money well spent, this is an opportunity for Nevadans to familiarize themselves with Oppenheim, an undeniably interesting and important figure. Despite many high-profile international public art commissions - he has a reputation for witty, idea-based sculpture - Oppenheim remains best known in the art world for his conceptual practices of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In these, the artist's body registered impinging environmental forces (gravity, sunlight) in stark visual terms. In the iconic Parallel Stress (1970), he suspended his body between pieces of concrete casting on a Brooklyn pier, and in an abandoned pit. The relationship between industrial landscapes and the body is made highly specific. In Reading Position for a Second Degree Burn (1970), Oppenheim documented sunburn by placing a book on his chest and lying in the sun for five hours. These simple, direct acts foregrounded the body as the locus of experience and measurement, and have resonated with artists ever since.
I asked Oppenheim some questions recently via e-mail, about the paintbrushes, art in Las Vegas, and the relationship of his early work and later work. His answers were optimistic. Let's hope a viable art scene can take hold in the shadow of the paintbrushes.
