Think about it.  It is a whole city built on the celebration of artifice.  It is a city designed to stimulate all of your senses and senses you didn’t even know you had.  Like any piece of art, some people love it and some find it to be utterly reprehensible.  There is no other city like it in the world and hence qualifies for another art criteria.  It is a true original.   (Yes there are other cities built around gambling, but that is ALL they are just places you go to to gamble).  Okay so maybe i can get away with this line of argument in describing the city itself, but certainly Vegas is not a city to go see great artworks  (unless it is of the ironic hipster variety).  There is no way that Vegas is  an art destination like Paris, New York, Chicago, or London right?.

Well, hold on for one second.   The Cosmopolitan, the new $4 billion hotel/casino, might have something to say about that.  Vegas hotel casinos are known for their “themes”and concepts designed to appeal to certain people.    Whereas places like Ceasar’s Palace and the Bellagio seem made  for my parents, Treasure Island, New York, New York, the Luxor – for people who have kids, or The Hard Rock Hotel for college kids and frat boys -  the Cosmopolitan is for the twenty/thirty something urbanite or urbanite wannabee for which art&design are apparently very important.   It is the first hotel in Vegas that seems to have had me in mind when they designed it – which is both an interesting and disturbing feeling.

What was interesting about the Cosmopolitan was that I had never read or heard anything about it beforehand – so I had the unique experience of putting the various pieces of the puzzle together and having my suspicions affirmed by reading about it later.  Here were some of  the pieces I put together:

1. First there was the modernist architecture with the more deconstructive, skewed, version of that found also found in much contemporary architecture.
2. The typeface of The Cosmopolitan itself.  A condensed sans serif.
3. The bar where i met my friends  had some interesting interior design elements which incorporated the use of LED video.  There was a DJ playing top40ish house music.  This bar was out in the open right as you walked in the door, not tucked away in the club.

These were all interesting but nothing really special or at least nothing i hadn’t seen in Vegas before, but then I made my first trip to the bathroom.

On the way I walked through the Casino floor doing the usual “checking out the new spot” routine when  I noticed on a flatscreen TV above a blackjack table some odd imagery playing above it.  What i mean by “odd” in Vegas is that it was imagery that didn’t really seem to have any function.  It wasn’t selling, hyping, or promoting anything.  It wasn’t the usual over the top, eye candy, or super duper slick aesthetic.   It was…. subtle….tasteful?

Video art above gaming tables. This piece is much better when you can see the details.

Is that video art?   I asked myself.  I surveyed the rest of the room and noticed that all of the other screens which hung over the gaming tables were not playing the usual sports, but were all playing the same thing.  Then I noticed that once this particular piece ended, not only did the name and date of the artist flash on, but an entirely new video piece, by another artist started playing.  On every trip to the bathroom after that,  I checked out to see what was on the screens.  To my surprise, I was always impressed by the quality of work.    It is video art!  In Vegas???

Now i spent the rest of the night drinking and gambling (c’mon you didn’t think i was there to look at art did you?), but i did wake up the next day (afternoon) thinking about it.   I went to the Cosmopolitan web site to find out more.  The video art had to just be some quirky thing right?    Lo and behold under the “experience” tab on the home page – ART had its own separate submenu.  And this is what you read when you click on it.

Not only did i unexpectedly see interesting contemporary art in a Vegas casino, but art was an actual part of the hotel’s mission, and at least from the writing – they seem to share similar sensibilities and values about art that I have.  Wait this is Vegas right?  So I went back to see for myself.  And as i wandered through the hotel I found art – good art – in all sorts of places. Wander is the key word, because that is how you have to find the art, and judging from other pictures I ‘ve seen on the web  there was a lot i didn’t see.  But here are some pics and videos:

 Rotating Video Art in the Hotel Lobby.

 

 

The Art-o-mat: What a great concept, vending machine of cigarette sized art

 

There was a series of these antique machines. What is cool is the view of the hallway you get when you look through them

p3 Studio is where they feature their artist-in-residence

Shephard fairy piece that i did not see

I also did no see this

So yes I was impressed by the art that was there.  I don’t think i even have to qaulify that with a “for Vegas”.   It was good stuff period.   I was impressed by the things i read about the ideas behind it.  At the same time I couldn’t get away from the fact that it was still Vegas.   As i said earlier, Vegas hotel/casinos are built on themes and concepts aimed at certain groups of people.  It is a city that  taps into your fantasies and aspirations to hook you into spending money and no matter how cool, that fact is always in the background.   Any “art experience” will still be coloured by this.    In that sense the Cosmopolitan is an interesting commentary about “my generation”.   Just as the Flamingo, Ceasar’s Palace, and the Bellagio are the themes designed for my parent’s generation, I guess the “theme” for my people is about art, design, and music – which is actually kind of cool.  Yet at the same time how is this REALLY different from any other hotel/casino on the strip.    As cool and relevant as you want to think your lifestyle and culture is, does the fact that it is now a theme for a hotel/casino on the Vegas strip mean that it is already dead and irrelevant?

This  New York Times article points out another interesting issue. is this even a profitable business venture?   Can a hotel themed around art, design, and the “urban lifestyle” sell?  It is a hotel designed for people in their late twenties and thirties, people not exactly known for their large amounts of disposable income.  Yes people like me.  I know the $25 minimums at the tables were too much for me.  It’s cool, it’s popular, but will it actually make money and be able to survive?   A place designed for my generation indeed.

Despite the inordinate amount of surfing and reading done on a daily basis, despite the fact that more is being written now than at any time in human history,  this is the first time that I’ve actually paid attention to writing in a while.

#launchofgrantland

Grantland.com is a new sports and pop culture site started by mega-popular sports columnist Bill Simmons.  If you are at all interested in intelligent writing  (the site features the likes of Chuck Klosterman, Dave Eggers, Malcom Gladwell) with interesting takes and angles on sports and pop culture, this site is for you.  One such piece, written by Tom Bissell, is a review of the video game “LA Noire”.   In it he not only reviews the game but ties it to larger issues of the video game as an artform and true storytelling medium.