Publications >
Las
Vegas Diaspora:
The Emergence of Contemporary Art from the Neon Homeland
Ridicule is Nothing to be Scared Of, 2005 (detail). James Gobel.
“Las Vegas had art, however fake and bad, and it didn’t have a judgmental stratum of white Protestant overseers devoted to keeping things nice and proper. It was home to a dynamic mercantile culture that loved the new, embraced change, and took risks as a matter of course. In an atmosphere like this, the arts can flourish, even in the sunshine of absolute neglect.” —Dave Hickey, setting the scene for the confluence of artists and art that called Las Vegas and his university art theory and criticism class home between 1990 and 2001.
This book—and the show it catalogs—features 26 artists who have been recognized for artistic achievement after earning degrees in studio art at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Participating artists include: Rev. Ethan Acres (Muscle Shoals, AL); Robert Acuna (Los Angeles); Philip Argent (Santa Barbara); Aaron Baker (Chicago); Tim Bavington (Las Vegas); Thomas Burke (New York); Jane Callister (Santa Barbara); Bradley Corman (Vancouver, Canada); Jacqueline Ehlis (Portland); Curtis Fairman (Las Vegas); Gajin Fujita (Los Angeles); Sush Machida Gaikotsu (Las Vegas); James Gobel (San Francisco); Sherin Guirguis (Los Angeles); Jack Hallberg (Las Vegas); James Hough (Las Vegas); Shawn Hummel (Las Vegas); Carrie Jenkins (Los Angeles); Angela Kallus (Las Vegas); Wayne Littlejohn (Las Vegas); Victoria Reynolds (Los Angeles); David Ryan (Las Vegas); Jason Tomme (New York); Sean Slattery (Las Vegas); Yek (Singapore and Las Vegas); and Almond Zigmund (New York).
Their accomplishments prompted Hickey to declare, “. . . so I wasn’t surprised that the kids who came here were adventuresome, cosmopolitan, self-sufficient, and indifferent to parental oversight. As a result of their industry and courage, some things that happen in Vegas don’t stay in Vegas. They go out and change the world.”
99 pages. ISBN 978-0-9774861-6-8 $39.95 hardbound 2007