| In 2003, I opened Dust Gallery in Las Vegas with the purpose of exhibiting emerging contemporary artists that lived and worked in Las Vegas. Coming from a non-profit background, specifically the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, I was initially inclined to operate Dust as a non-profit art space. At that time, however, there were no commercial galleries exhibiting art by artists living and working locally, so, in light of this fact, I ultimately chose to operate a for-profit gallery. By functioning as a commercial space, we were able to assist artists in making a living as professional artists, thereby keeping the artists living and working in Las Vegas rather than losing them to more established locations where the sale of their work would be much easier. |  |
Dust Gallery – Naomi Arin
In 2003, I opened Dust Gallery in Las Vegas with the purpose of exhibiting emerging contemporary artists that lived and worked in Las Vegas. Coming from a non-profit background, specifically the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, I was initially inclined to operate Dust as a non-profit art space. At that time, however, there were no commercial galleries exhibiting art by artists living and working locally, so, in light of this fact, I ultimately chose to operate a for-profit gallery. By functioning as a commercial space, we were able to assist artists in making a living as professional artists, thereby keeping the artists living and working in Las Vegas rather than losing them to more established locations where the sale of their work would be much easier. In 2004, I shifted Dust’s focus so that the exhibition programming highlighted local artistic production while also presenting exhibitions of emerging artists from other parts of the country and the world. As I thought about the gallery programming for this current year, I wanted to avoid regionalism or isolation, and to place Las Vegas artists in context with contemporary work being created in other places. In addition, by presenting artists from New York to Los Angeles and beyond, Las Vegas audiences would now be able to enjoy contemporary art that they may not normally have the opportunity to see, at least not within city limits.
Since establishing my gallery here three and a half years ago, the issue of art production and place has been an ongoing and continuing discussion. A number of experiences come to mind that have added to the dialogue.
In the fall of 2004, Dust presented an exhibition of new work by Las Vegas artist Curtis Fairman and Boston-based artist Brian Zink. I had first become familiar with Brian Zink’s work while living in Boston and working for the ICA. When I approached Brian to exhibit his work at Dust, he had been creating a new body of work using found objects, specifically hospital railings, to create wall-mounted sculptural paintings. I had already selected Zink to exhibit with Curtis Fairman before I realized the similarities between their respective bodies of work.
Fairman also uses commonplace found objects (he prefers to call them “purchased objects”) to create three-dimensional works that seamlessly recombine useful items such as candlesticks, stainless steel bowls, toilet brushes and doorknobs. The practical items found in Fairman’s sculptures feel vaguely familiar but are recast as objects of only aesthetic value.
With all the conversation about the drastic differences between East Coast/West Coast art production, it was striking that the process of these two artists was so similar, albeit unintentionally. It made the pairing even more compelling when discussing regionalism and art production, especially considering that one definitive difference between Fairman and Zink’s work could be found in their disparate palettes. Where Zink chose muted institutional tones, Fairman consistently focused on shiny and fluorescent objects.
In February of 2005, Dust Gallery presented “NY © LV,” an exhibition of 11 artists living and working in NY. The exhibition was curated by New York painter Lisa Stefanelli and afforded Las Vegas gallery audiences a rare opportunity to see this work outside of New York. What came as a surprise was the overwhelmingly positive response we received from these first time visitors to Vegas. The New York artists who attended the opening immediately began describing a sense of freedom brought on by the comparatively boundless and wide open spaces of the American West. Without fail, the artists began commenting on the astounding lack of regulation or stifling art world mores found in New York. It was then that I understood how liberating it could be to practice art, open a gallery or curate in a place like Las Vegas.
