Double Down

06Jan09

The entrance to Double Down: Two Visions of Vegas at SFMOMA is marked by silver wall text atop a blue vinyl sign, imitating the atomic, neon glamour of Las Vegas in the era of the Stardust resort and casino.  Leading visitors towards this sign is a wall lined with 15 photographs of sparse, post-industrial landscapes from [...]

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Tags: architecture, contemporary art, double down, economy, glitz, landmarks, las vegas, lewis baltz, olivo barbieri, replica, scale, sfmoma, souvenir, video art

Fake Honesty, Honest Fakery

17Aug08

This morning on NPR, Daniel Schorr discussed the “fakery” of the fireworks and lipsynching of the Beijing Games, bringing to mind Dave Hickey’s examination of the authenticity through Las Vegas’s Liberace Museum, “A Rhinestone as Big as The Ritz“:
“[Friends who visit Las Vegas] prefer the page of the landscape to the text of the neon. They [...]

Filed under: art theory, authenticity, critique, excess, interdisciplinary, peripheral vision   |  1 Comment
Tags: ancient art, art history, authenticity, beijing olympics, caesars palace, casinos, dave hickey, elvis, fakery, footprint fireworks, las vegas, NPR, replica