The High Life Meets Still Life in Vegas

Some came for the masterpieces, others for the motorcycles. And collectively, they heaped praise on the Strip’s two newest attractions--a pair of Guggenheim museums that opened Sunday to test the city’s appetite for culture.

“Imagine--real art in a virtual city!” said a euphoric Sheila Norman, moving slowly from one steel-walled room to the next at the new Guggenheim Hermitage Museum inside the Venetian Resort.

“I’m seeing art here that I can’t see anywhere else,” said Norman, a resident of Chigwell, England, who proudly displayed her membership card to the the Royal Academy of Arts in London. “This is totally fresh and absolutely delightful.”

Past the hotel’s slot machines--and an art world away--Jay Weber and Danielle Caruso of St. Louis gawked at the interior of the cavernous and shimmering, steel-and-glass Guggenheim Las Vegas and its “The Art of the Motorcycle.”

The couple had been mesmerized for more than three hours by the visual feast of about 130 collectible motorcycles from around the globe.

“We’ve been casino-hopping and we’ve done all the roller coasters in town, but this,” Weber said, waving his hand over the exhibits, “is striking. And it’s not just the motorcycles, but the presentation. This is overwhelming.”

From Kandinsky to Kawasaki

And so it went Sunday, as the city’s newest experiment in entertainment--the convergence of pop art and high art inside a Venice-themed hotel--opened to respectable numbers in separate exhibition spaces. Lines for tickets were mostly short, but steady through the day.

The openings mark the newest commercial outreach by New York City’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to take art to the masses in unlikely places--it built an even larger museum in Bilbao, Spain--and the first time that Russia’s State Hermitage Museum has opened a museum space--alone or as a partner--outside its homeland.

There seemed little overlap Sunday between each museum’s audience, what with Kawasaki and Kandinsky having little in common--but collectively, the customers mostly agreed that the shows were worth $15.

Some were underwhelmed. Dr. Tom Mueller and his wife, Brenda, of Seattle, complained that the masterworks inside the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum weren’t to their taste. “Where are the still lifes and the Dutch masters?” he asked.

Added his wife, “Art should say something to people, but I can’t relate to this.”

Others quietly groused that there was no seating within the museum where they could pause and reflect.

But Jan and Jim Kuhns, who moved here from Los Angeles seven years ago, said they were ecstatic that fine art has apparently found a permanent home here.

‘A Nice Break From All the Glitz and Glam’

“I’m an art lover, and what I’ve missed since we moved here is that there was no quality art museums,” she said. “This is like an appetizer. I’m now ready for the full course, but this is a good beginning, and I’m so excited it’s here.”

Her husband wasn’t sure what to make of the museum’s simplistic architecture--a sort of strongbox, literally and metaphorically, enclosed by rust-brown steel looking like soft leather, on which the paintings are hung with magnets.

“Looks kind of temporary to me,” he said skeptically. “It’s like, if this place doesn’t go over, they can bring in the slot machines.”

Cindy Guest, here from Sacramento for a convention, pronounced the museum a worthy addition to the town’s other highlights. “I love Las Vegas--the pirates, the volcano, the centurions, the talking statues, the Mardi Gras. And now, with this museum, it’s got it all, including art. And tourists who come here need to see it all.”

Donna Sweeney, Guest’s friend from San Jose, said she would rather have spent her afternoon touring the Hoover Dam, but because those tours have been canceled since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she didn’t mind being dragged into the art museum.

“I didn’t want to spend $25 to see [the amusement ride] ‘Star Trek,’ so when Cindy went to it, I stayed outside--and spent a lot more than that on the slots. So I figure it’s cheaper to pay $15 to see the art than to stay outside in the casino.”

Rosalind Vanderhook, an arts lover from Santa Barbara, said her husband was more than happy to have her view art while he gambled. “If I wasn’t here, I’d be shopping,” she said.

At the Guggenheim Las Vegas motorcycle exhibit, brothers Floyd Adams of Burnt Hills, N.Y., and Jeff Adams of Amherst, N.H.--here for a family reunion--admitted the show wasn’t for everyone.

“Since we’ve been in town,” said Floyd Adams, “we’ve done Neil Sedaka, the ‘Legends of Concert,’ ‘Splash’ and magician Mac King. Of the six of us in the group, we’re the only two who wanted to see this. But that’s what makes Vegas great--there’s something for everyone.”

Jeremiah Mann of Santa Monica and Erica Swensson of Laguna Beach decided on the spur of the moment Saturday night to drive to Las Vegas to see the motorcycle show, and said Sunday they had no regrets.

“Vegas is a catch-all for a lot of weird things,” he said, “and this is the newest. And it’s wonderful.”

The show’s opening also prompted Steve Anderson of Salt Lake City to drive to Las Vegas overnight. “It’s nice they’re putting a little culture in this town,” he said. “There’s not enough money to sit at a poker table all day. This is a great alternative, to see a slice of Americana.”

On their next trip to town, they would see the fine art exhibit, promised Anderson’s friend, Janet Riffle. “It’s such a nice break from all the glitz and glam,” she said.

Indeed, viewing Pablo Picasso’s “Fernande with a Black Mantilla” and Claude Monet’s “Lady in the Garden” was, in a town seemingly inured to culture shock, a bit of a culture shock.

“It’s amazing to see this kind of art in any city,” said Norman. “And it’s doubly amazing to have it here in Las Vegas.”