Created within the confines of an era dominated by vinyl and its limitations as a medium, Thriller included only nine songs that total less than 45 min. (by comparison, Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream requires nearly an hour to present its robotic, often indistinguishable dance anthems). Songwriter Rod Temperton wrote over thirty compositions for the album; only three of his songs made the final cut. The affiliated Motown 25 performance of 1983 was the perfectly distilled composition of drama, artistic references and visible emotion. Later in life Jackson severely suffered from an inability to edit his personal life with similar skill, but in terms of  music and performances, his achievements in editing have rarely been seen in pop music since.

Cirque du Soleil’s new Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour purports to continue the pop icon’s legacy through the spectacle-driven acrobatics that define the French-Canadian company’s past 25 years of productions. Throughout the various three-minute YouTube videos, promotional interviews and online sources, Director Jamie King promises to turn Jackson’s legacy into a Cirque du Soleil show that re-envisions his concert experiences; in effect, the audience should find themselves believing in the star’s artistic immortality through the experience of the show.

Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour. Image by Olivier Samson Arcand for Detroit Free Press.

The lens King selects to craft the Cirque journey into a Michael Jackson-infused world immediately signals the impossibility of the task at hand. The show begins with a rapid-fire video montage across various over-sized screens, the largest of which intermittently raises from and retracts back into the main stage floor. The various forms of Michael flash before our eyes; red jackets, white gloves, black loafers, crying fans, gold jumpsuits, smoke and guitars, and all of the other iconic imagery builds towards an expectantly thrilling climax. Seated in the giant arena, fans screaming (albeit not as loudly as those in the montage), lights flashing, it seems that Michael Jackson is mere moments away from magically dropping onto the empty stage; for a second, he is immortal.

That moment abruptly ends as the images distill into a single, Jackson 5-era Michael across all screens, sporting the classic globe Afro and singing the chorus of “I’ll Be There.” Evoking a memory of the first time I heard this song on a car insurance commercial following the announcement of Jackson’s death, those of us in the audience are given just enough time to loose all of the energy created by the earlier video montage.  Then, The Immortal hits us with the first, full-length Jackson song of the show: “Childhood.” As the Disney-like instrumentals of the lesser known, Free Willy 2 ballad from 1995’s HIStory album fill the arena, the golden gates of Neverland roll into the stage’s center, followed by a wandering line of acrobats, made up in a monochromatic, metallic gold sheen that signifies the statues that once populated Neverland Ranch.

Cirque du Soleil's Neverland gates. Image by Olivier Samson Arcand for Detroit Free Press.

As the acrobatic figures flip and cartwheel to Jackson’s high-pitched musings on the sorrows of his youth, the question of editing arises from the disappointment.  Why the video montage buildup? Why not the artist’s signature opening track, “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin” or any number of his works of greatness, rather than this track I recall not even appreciating as a teenage, suburban Jackson fan in the 90s?

Those familiar with Cirque du Soleil’s standard tropes recall the company’s typical, quasi-narrative journey begins with a symbolic transition from the audience’s world to the Cirque fantasy. Conceptually, the use of the Neverland entrance to instigate the beginning of the Michael Jackson experience makes sense. However, in the context of an arena full of fans who have been promised an “immortal world tour,” in a moment when Jackson’s music has managed to overcome the never-ending coverage of his personal life, conjuring the aspects of the artist that most of us wish he would have edited himself demonstrates the stream of erroneous approaches populating the production.

Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour. Image by Olivier Samson Arcand for Detroit Free Press.

The five MJ impersonators who lead the journey of Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour. Image by Olivier Samson Arcand for Detroit Free Press.

The competition between intentions unfortunately persists throughout most of the show, limiting other potential successes significantly. “Human Nature” could have been a stunning combination of one of the singer’s strongest ballads with the aerialist spectacle and sparkling special effects for which Cirque du Soleil is known.  Positioning LED-coated acrobats against a projected night sky as Jackson’s strangely complex ode to desire whispered through the arena, the moment was nearly exquisite. However, one had to block from sight a strangely swinging, CGI-like version of an over-sized, juvenile, hovering alongside the aerialists, in order to appreciate the aesthetic experience.  Herein lies the primary issue with Michael Jackson: The Immortal and its failure to immortalize the singer: the absence of editing.

"Human Nature" performance by Cirque du Soleil, including the CGI Child. Image by Olivier Samson Arcand for Detroit Free Press.

The competition between intentions throughout the production ultimately causes The Immortal to disintegrate into what can only be described as a hot mess by the show’s end. Jamie King’s self-imposed responsibility to both Michael Jackson’s fans and to his own understanding of the singer’s vision were pitted against the needs of the fantastical, established circus. The resulting offense committed against the fans and Michael’s own approach to touring was the shortening of seminal songs (“Billie Jean,” “Beat It” and “Bad,” most notably) to allow more time for full renditions of the weaker ballads and lesser known tracks that were better suited for the acrobats. The issues caused for the Cirque du Soleil manifested as recessive acrobatic presence, and, most egregiously, the troupe’s appropriation of Jackson’s trademark imagery into absurd costumes, including an enormous, white glove that roamed the stage, bringing to mind the White Glove Tracking Project, among other unintentionally humorous distractions.

The White Glove Tracking Project, whose imagery was entirely too similar to the enlarged white glove that took the form of a costume in Michael Jackson: The Immortal.

Although Michael Jackson: The Immortal’s shortcomings would be easy to blame on its positioning as a beloved, nostalgic music experience that no longer exists, Cirque du Soleil found significant success in its Las Vegas-based production of The Beatles LOVE.  Without the weight of the incomplete This is It tour, a doctor recently convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and the determination to execute the show as he artist’s own vision, LOVE succeeds in creating aesthetically based performances inspired by the songs of their soundtrack; this simpler focus enables the stegnth’s of Cirque du Soleil’s performers and the recorded music to ground the show, rather than the comprehensive history of The Beatles themselves. The Immortal, in contrast, strives to achieve too much, in too many divergent directions that ultimately benefit neither the Cirque performers nor the needs of a successful tribute-based approach.

Cirque du Soleil's LOVE at the Mirage Casino in Las Vegas. Image from Cirque du Soleil.

The most consistent feeling that pervades Michael Jackson: The Immortal is the absence of Jackson himself.  The band of mummies behaving like zombies in “Thriller” (another moment of bafflement), the white fedora-clad gangsters of “Smooth Criminal,” all seem to be building towards a climactic moment when their centering leader appears onstage, exploding into the burst of iconic choreography and genuinely performed ecstasy that is so noticeably absent not only in this production, but in most live pop music of the present moment.  The arena full of devotees, many clad in red leather jackets, white gloves and black fedoras, more than most aspects of the performance, supported the notion that Michael Jackson’s legacy is, in fact, immortal. As demonstrated by this Cirque production, however, the genius of his ability to distill music, choreography, and his personal iconography into a single, perfect moment may be absent from the stage for generations to come.

The mummies in Cirque du Soleil's rendition of "Thriller" for Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour. Image by Olivier Samson Arcand for Detroit Free Press.

]]> http://peripheralvisionblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/remember-to-always-think-twice-the-pains-of-immortalizing-michael-jackson/feed/ 0 erin l. http://peripheralvisionblog.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/economy-of-space-the-new-gallery-that-is-prole-drift/ http://peripheralvisionblog.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/economy-of-space-the-new-gallery-that-is-prole-drift/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 02:38:43 +0000 erin l. http://peripheralvisionblog.wordpress.com/?p=4486 ]]> Over on New American Paintings Blog, I recently spoke with Dirk Park, co-founder of Aqua Art Miami, Platform Gallery and now founder of Prole Drift in Seattle’s International District. Although I went into the interview thinking we would discuss the mechanics of opening a traditional gallery space, hearing the full story revealed an unexpected gallery structure that could not be more fitting for the present economic moment.  Full interview here.

An Empty Vase. Conceived by Jenny Heishman and Matthew Offenbacher. 2011. Image courtesy of Prole Drift.

Storm Tharp: Nosebleed, 2011, Ink, Fabric Dye on Stretched Paper, two panels 84” x 33 ¾” Image courtesy of James Harris Gallery.

]]> http://peripheralvisionblog.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/new-american-paintings-blog-sarah-awad-and-storm-tharp/feed/ 0 erin l. Tharp Nosebleed http://peripheralvisionblog.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/uncanny-unease-the-digital-eye-at-the-henry-art-gallery/ http://peripheralvisionblog.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/uncanny-unease-the-digital-eye-at-the-henry-art-gallery/#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 01:55:02 +0000 erin l. http://peripheralvisionblog.wordpress.com/?p=4385 ]]> The digital eye is an uncanny one, at least as it stands in the Henry Art Gallery’s exhibition The Digital Eye: Photographic Art in the Electronic Age. Although this is not true of every work of art included in the show, a substantial number of the images create the distinct sense of unease that defines uncanniness through not only the subject matter depicted, but more often through the overtly disjointed way the photographic imagery appears within the frame.

Simen Johan. Untitled #83 (from the And Nothing was to be Trusted series). 1999. Toned gelatin silver print. Collection of Marita Holdaway. © Simen Johan. Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York.

The doll-like baby captured in Simen Johan’s Untitled #83 (from the And Nothing was to be Trusted series), with a menacing expression and a devil-like crown of black hair, would be disturbing independently. However, the image takes on a hyperreal quality through its heightened contrast: the fire burns with a radiating intensity that makes its innocent role atop a birthday cake lost in exchange for the threat of imminent danger. Likewise, the toddler becomes a ravenous, cyborg-like figure that belongs squarely in the uncanny valley, its eyes more robotic than human, its face shrouded in shadows, staring into nothingness.

Sigmund Freud presented one of the earliest and most longstanding definitions of the uncanny: a frightening instance that bears a relationship to the familiar. Occurrences such as prosthetic and severed limbs, ghosts and the dead, cyborgs, robots, doppelgängers and automatons fall within this understanding of the uncanny valley.  The arm that is a part of the human form seems so normal when attached to a person, yet becomes something else entirely when detached. The Addams Family took advantage of the latter’s affect through the “Thing” character, a natural fit within the show’s comically repulsive tropes.  Likewise, a prosthetic arm on an otherwise natural body can also be an jarring visual experience when unexpectedly taking the place of the skin and appendages we expect.

Still from The Addams Family. Image from addamsfamily.com

Image: Wendy McMurdo. Helen, Backstage, Merlin Theatre (The Glance). 1995. Pigmented inkjet print. Courtesy of the artist. Image from henryart.org.

However, the more interesting relationship between the uncanny and this exhibition manifests more subtly, through the techniques employed within some of The Digital Eye’s most captivating works. Like many manmade objects, a particular fascination comes along with a photographic spectacle that is not immediately decipherable; the same way one stares from atop the Hoover Dam and attempts to fathom how mid-century technology enabled this sublime structure’s production, a similar curiosity arises when staring into a photograph that appears too composed to be real. Although the increasing prevalence of Photoshop may have dulled this effect in recent years, a fascinatingly unknown quality remains beneath the surface of a digital photograph that seems too composed to be true.

Julie Blackmon. Powerade (from the series Domestic Vacations). 2005. Pigmented inkjet print. Courtesy of the artist and G. Gibson Gallery, Seattle. Image from henryart.org

In The Digital Eye, Julie Blackmon’s pigmented inkjet print Powerade (From the series Domestic Vacations) makes this effect its focal point, integrating otherwise mundane imagery into a disturbing image that commands not so much a look as a blatant stare.  A mere glance at the photograph would suggest a boy playing in a yard. However, with any closer inspection, the red ball, the boy’s back and the blue bottle of Powerade ensnare the on-looking eye, naturally pulling its attention towards these objects existing on an overtly distinct plane from their surroundings.  Looking more closely reveals the “yard” as an estranged garden of sorts, more likely to house gnomes or the Fountain of Youth than the swing set and bicycle that one would expect to find in an ordinary boy’s world.  A sense of uncertainty pervades the entire image; what initially seemed familiar appears strange and hyperreal.  Despite the absence of an object of decided uncanniness, Powerade belongs in the valley as much as any disembodied appendage.

Mad Homes installation view, image by Bryan Ohno.

Pool at the Bellagio, Las Vegas

Emblematic of relaxation and luxury, swimming pools across America dress-to-impress with waterfalls, floating bars and palm tree clusters. The Las Vegas swimming pool goes farther, embodying a highly constructed destination, attitude or theme: replicated Greek and Roman statuary surround “The Garden of the Gods” at Caesars Palace; the Southeast Asian-themed Mandalay Bay’s “The Beach,” offers sand and a wave pool; lush landscaping, faux grottos and cascading waterfalls line the Mirage’s oasis-like space. The city’s known excess sets expectations high for architectural elements, but almost every “pool experience” now goes beyond the standard hotel pool, creating a total environment.

Despite Las Vegas’s penchant for relentless change, a consistent set of elements persevere throughout the Strip’s structural history: casino, hotel, retail, sign, grounds, porte-cochere, parking and pool; Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s 1972 Learning from Las Vegas incorporates an extensive categorization of such features, all of which continue to be found in Las Vegas today. The most notable component to change from definitive to inconsequential is the property sign. LED lights and digital screens extinguished the neon sign’s artistry and impact; themes previously realized through multi-story signs shaped into pink, atomic clouds, stylized minarets and billowing plumes now manifested as sculptural architecture across the Las Vegas skyline, dwarfing the signs that never grew to the Strip’s new scale.

Stardust sign and casino, Las Vegas. Image from playle.com

In contrast, the Las Vegas pool amplified its size and function since the neon era. When casinos began opening along Las Vegas Boulevard South in the 1940s and 50s, the property’s sign was the dominant promotional outlet.  Taking the lead from the classic motel structure, Strip casinos targeting drivers on US Highway 91 used the sign to represent their contents and themes, while the modest, postage stamp pools offered the tempting contrast of glimmering water against the stark desert. Some hotels, such as the El Rancho, positioned their pools as secondary billboards, supporting the property sign out front: the classic desert mirage materialized for drivers as they emerged from the empty desert.

El Rancho sign and swimming pool, Las Vegas. Image from unlv.edu

Although this oasis effect reflects a promotional aspect of the early Las Vegas pool experience, thirty years later, that role transitioned from architectural element to complete representation. A shift in visual cues occurred as the pool’s value to the overall casino image increased and the outdoor sign diminished. The opening of the Mirage in 1989 initiated the trend of entertainment as a significantly more prominent aspect of casino revenues, largely realized through amplification of the casino’s theme; the “mirage” literally became Steve Wynn’s entire, 3,000+ room resort.  The keystone of this tangible fantasy is the pool,  a winding lagoon of electric blue, surrounded by lavish landscaping, a tiki-themed bar and splashing waterfalls. By adopting the iconic desert oasis as its theme, the Mirage built an image with the pool at its core.

Mirage pool., Las Vegas. Image from thedubaipie.wordpress.com

The immersive pool trend initiated by the Mirage spread quickly throughout the 1990s, the pool’s role as sign increasingly strengthened while hotel themes proliferated and expanded; the Excalibur’s fairytale castle, the Luxor’s glass pyramid and Treasure Island’s pirate ships replaced the standard “tropical” and “old west” iconography historically dominant on the Strip. Exterior and interior architecture reflected the new themes at maximum volume, yet little innovation was put towards the property sign, its promotional power diminished by the shift in vistors’ arrival method, from the road to the airplane.

Booking a hotel upon arrival in Las Vegas is a ritual of the past; instead, travel search engines such as Orbitz and Kayak.com represent the new drive-by. Following a series of clicks, the Las Vegas-bound traveler finds the Strip in digital form; here, the property sign is insignificant. Rather, price, availability, and desirable amenities exert comparable power over the internet searcher’s desire to stop. In order to compete in this marketplace, a casino needs a virtual edge that fulfills the old role of the sign. As a component of the casino well served by glossy imagery and barely-clothed sex appeal, the pool became a natural solution.

The new “destination”  theme common throughout the Strip by the late 1990s effectively translated into matching pool environments. In 1998, Steve Wynn transformed an image of the Italian Bellagio resort into drizzling fountains and “historic” two-story building facades, while in 1999, Circus Circus Corporation realized the Mandalay Bay’s Southeast Asian theme by bringing in 2700 tons of a sand. While the more resort-friendly pools instigate total immersion in the “resort experience” as much as they represent the casinos’ themes, the 1997 New York New York casino’s “Park Avenue Poolside” demonstrates one of the most complete embodiments of its place.

Small, grassy mounds, scattered trees and a yellow volleyball net stretched across the NY NY pool visually cue a condensed Central Park encircled by a line of brick restaurant facades; this is standard Las Vegas pool themeing.  Beyond the constructed details, standard chaises cover concrete pool deck, so densely packed that in the absence of aisles, loungers awkwardly crawl across the chairs to place their towels, Offering space for 840 pool-goers in a hotel that houses over 2000 rooms, the chairs are at a premium reminiscent of New York apartments; once finally situated, the New York New York guests find themselves crammed into the claustrophobic, Manhattan lifestyle, as close to the “New York experience” as many Americans from less occupied areas of the country may get.  The pool, in this respect, offers more immersion in the resort’s theme than the hotel’s purple, art deco-inspired bedspreads or the beer guzzling Lady Liberty sign could ever hope to instigate.

New York, New York pool, Las Vegas

“Park Avenue Poolside” offers little of the traditional experience affiliated with resort swimming pools; relaxation ultimately is not its purpose.  Rather, the Las Vegas pool has become a representation of the hotel in the way the property sign once was, to the point that it inherently embodies the casino’s essence.  In a landscape where every business is selling the same thing, for extreme profits, convincing an audience of business individuality is difficult, and ultimately a deception.  The pool effectively played the role of the sign during the 1990s and early 2000s, becoming a place for immersive signification within the hotel premises. As the most current casinos begin to de-theme their approaches, the next signifier of choice is still unclear but can be expected to create an equally elaborate spectacle.

Sahara Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas.

The Sahara’s House of Lords restaurant discretely inhabits a corner of its disintegrating casino. If the restaurant were representative of the Sahara’s present state, the casino’s closure in less than one month would be surprising—the House of Lords stands in pristine condition, its subtle fountains circulating beneath a shimmering, faux night sky, surrounded by a circle of booths backed with golden minarets. A more recent incarnation of the restaurant that originally opened in 1954, this House of Lords avoids the dire fate of the rest of the casino, which suffers from abandoned towers full of severely aged rooms, a swimming pool surrounded by empty fountains and a row of shops pushing sales of discounted halter tops and rhinestone flip-flops.

The House of Lords, Sahara. Image from vegastripping.com

The Sahara represents one of the last casinos on the Las Vegas Strip with ties to the city’s past image as a haven for celebrities and Los Angeles’s elite to escape Hollywood . Outside of their stage time, performers were known to frequent the casino floors and restaurants, providing an image of Las Vegas as a place uniquely accessible to the stars. The long defunct, tiki-themed Don the Beachcomber restaurant was the best known restaurant in the Sahara for celebrity sightings during the mid-century era, more so than the original House of Lords.

The current House of Lords integrates aspects of its own history with that of Don the Beachcomber to create a constructed time capsule aimed at an audience nostalgic for “old Las Vegas” and its celebrity-filled associations. Its overtly dark lighting, small number of tables, and seclusion within the casino communicates exclusivity, while the circular positioning of the booths creates the sense of intimacy often absent from contemporary Las Vegas restaurants. Photo murals of the casino’s original architecture and the stars who frequented the Sahara surround the room, offering a meager substitute for the unsurprising absence of celebrity presence at the present-day, modest casino.  The mid-century Las Vegas Strip was a place to become glamorous by association; the House of Lords attempts to bring back that moment as best it can within a vastly different Las Vegas landscape.

Postcard image of Don the Beachcomber restaurant, Sahara. Image from hmdavid on flickr.com

In contrast to the more observation-based celebrity experience valued by the Baby Boomer generation, the current Millennial generation now coveted by the Las Vegas Strip casinos integrates participation with their concept of celebrity; these Americans want to be the celebrity. The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, located several miles from the Strip, embodies this newer attitude, beginning upon arrival at the casino’s porte-cochere. Since the 1970s most casinos have amplified the porte-cochere feature of their entrance: the MGM Grand maintains an enormous, bulbous cover loosely referencing its overblown Art Deco décor, the tropical Mirage incorporates a thatched roof-like texture and oversized flowers, and seventeenth century oil painting reproductions hang salon style from the ceiling of the Venetian’s roundabout.

Hard Rock Casino, Las Vegas. Image from handycrafuniqe.com

Entering the Hard Rock through the back taxi entrance, in contrast, evokes the Hollywood red carpet arrival: shining mirror panels cover the porte-cochere surfaces, accented with white incandescent bulbs that suggest the  camera flashes of paparazzi at-the-ready. The hotel’s website describes the rooms as “designed with the discerning rock star in mind.” Once per week, guests can engage in tabloid-worthy activities at Rehab, the Hard Rock’s enormously popular pool party that initiated a city-wide trend of young adult-oriented pools and pool night clubs. The most prominent image throughout the casino is the Hard Rock’s trademark celebrity memorabilia. Worn jackets, sparkling costumes and floating instruments fill museum-like display cases every several yards: Shaun White’s flag-print jeans from a Rolling Stone cover shoot, Gwen Stefani’s pink, rhinestone halter top, Kurt Cobain’s signed guitar. Famous objects live here, devoid of their owners, the celebrity role open for casino guests to fill.

Hard Rock Casino interior, Las Vegas.

Mr. Lucky’s 24-7 resides in an alcove off of the Hard Rock’s circular gaming area, posing as a “retro” diner from an indiscernible era. Aged signs from motels and restaurants and motels line the walls, interspersed with archival photographs of Elvis, the Rat Pack and the other mid-century Vegas icons seen on the walls of the House of Lords. The most recent incarnation of MTV’s series The Real World, the reality television show in which a cast of seven unknowns become instant celebrities while their lives are filmed for six months, the cast inevitably inhabits the Hard Rock Hotel; countless scenes of these readymade celebrities take place inside Mr. Lucky’s 24-7.

Mr. Lucky's 24-7, Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

In the background of several shots of the show hovers vintage “H” and “R” neon signs, abbreviating “Hard Rock.” Anyone familiar with the Las Vegas landscape would recognize the letters’ distinctive font; they came from a sign once spelling “Sahara.” The signifiers of celebrity in Las Vegas have been similarly changed: reorganized, restored, polished and painted. Ultimately, indicators of celebrity, both past and present, represent a fascination still ever-present in the American fantastical landscape.

The change of the resort’s name to Wynn aptly demonstrates its relationship to art: originally to be called Le Rêve after casino developer Steve Wynn’s famed painting by Picasso, Wynn changed the name to something more recognizable by his clientele.  As a resort intended to shed the themed environments characteristic of the 1990s Las Vegas Strip,  “luxury” became the focus of the new casino. This form of luxury differed from the version Steve Wynn created for his earlier Bellagio, which evoked the eighteenth century Grand Tour and included art as one component of the luxury experience though its art gallery (more on the Bellagio in a forthcoming post).

The new Wynn, in contrast, rebranded luxury as name cachet, created for those knowledgeable enough to have an understanding and association with the names comprising the stores, restaurants and hotel itself. Paul Verhoeven’s Las Vegas-based Showgirls  (1995) showcases the difference between the various Las Vegas audiences though the lower class character Nomi’s initial mispronunciation of Versace and lack of awareness of celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck’s Spago restaurant, in contrast with lead, affluent dancer Cristal Connors’s “in the know” disposition.

Wynn’s reconstruction of luxury’s signifiers was effective in both enabling his new resort to become one of the costliest on the Las Vegas Strip, and contributing to the “de-theming” future resorts, as seen in more recent casino constructions in CityCenter Las Vegas and the Cosmopolitan.

Damien Hirst. For the Love of God. 2007. Image from wikipedia.org.

Damien Hirst’s For the Love of God would be the ideal for the Wynn Esplanade because of its parallels to the developer’s own history and role as a constructed status symbol within the contemporary art field. The sculpture’s surface appearance alone aligns with the overstated opulence that characterizes the most expensive hotels on the Las Vegas Strip; however, the Wynn’s Esplanade supplies the most concentrated collection of high-end, designer shops that serve as status symbols within American society. The inclusion of a Ferrari dealer and gallery in the Wynn brings this brand of luxury to a visual pinnacle, an American status symbol recognizable by almost anyone who walks into the casino; similarly, Hirst’s use of 8,061 diamonds as an artistic medium and noted £14 million in production costs to construct an art object that immediately bestows a status of wealth and extravagance upon it purchaser. The Ferrari dealership makes high-end vehicles instantly available for the Wynn’s high rollers to purchase with their newfound winnings; how fitting it would be for For the Love of God to be on hand for a similar whim.

In reality, For the Love of God resides far away from the Las Vegas Strip, supposedly purchased by a consortium that included Damien Hirst himself, in a performative display of art market manipulation. Reportedly sold at its projected value of £50 million, the purchase of For the Love of God was covered by news outlets worldwide as an authentic sale, despite the questionable lack of documentation and public details surrounding the sale. This maneuver bears strong resemblance to Steve Wynn’s performance-like implosions of historic casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.  The casino developer’s demolition of the Dunes in 1993 included coordination with the pirate-themed Treasure Island, then also a Wynn property. The implosion’s constructed narrative included the image of a cannonball shooting from Treasure Island to detonate the Dunes. Unlike many closing casinos, Wynn also opted to include the iconic, 18-story sign in the destruction, demonstrating an overt lack of reverence for the earlier hotel’s cultural significance and clear statement of his view on the future of Las Vegas.

Wynn attempted to solicit footage of the Dunes implosion to cinematic studios, to no avail. Ultimately electing to shoot the footage himself, the filmed explosion afterwards became sought after and sold for use in multiple Hollywood films. Martin Scorsese’s 1995 Casino featured one of the most memorable inclusions of Wynn’s footage, in which the implosion represents the Las Vegas Strip’s transition from control by organized crime figures to the corporate branding of casinos.  As a result of Casino and other media portrayals of Las Vegas’s shift towards family oriented experiences in the 1990s, Wynn’s filmed representation became the reality; his themed casinos replaced “classic,” adult-oriented environments, and Americans bought into the rebranded city enough to start bringing their children to indulge in the pirate ships, tropical waterfalls and oversized castles of the “new” Las Vegas, thus making Wynn’s imagery a reality.

The new Wynn Las Vegas differs significantly from the initial version of Las Vegas he set out to create though the Dunes implosion; the influence the casino developer established through his performative destructions allows his powerful image to proliferate, to the point that his name alone is now enough to attract thousands of individuals to his casino daily. Likewise, Damien Hirst’s performance surrounding For the Love of God brought his name the forefront of the media and American consciousness through a similar medium and a comparable level of success within the contemporary art field. The value of a diamond is only a small fraction of the value of a name; it is safe to assume both Hirst and Wynn know this all too well.