Friday, March 27, 1998 | 9:35 a.m.
LET'S BEGIN this thing by wondering -- briefly, I promise -- what is art? Is it whatever issues from an artist's hands, as some, including a lot of artists, believe? OK, let's say that the products issuing from the artist's hands are just that, products, chunks of work-for-hire not meant to grace a gallery but rather adorn a casino. Not art, then, right? After all, they won't serve the agreed-upon purpose of art -- giving viewers glimpses into other points of view -- but will merely tighten down a resort's grand marketing gimmick. Definitely not art, then. But what if the artist, fully aware of the objects' purely decorative destiny, nonetheless lavishes on them the full measure of her skill and talent? Is it art then, or at least something a little closer?
Let's begin threshing this out in the clay-spotted home studio of artist Sue Brna. Brna is one of the squadron of artists hired to re-create the thousands of authentic-looking architectural flourishes that will festoon Sheldon Adelson's Venetian hotel-casino when it opens next year.
She is, she says, the Lion Lady. "My lion head will be reproduced 3,000 times," she says, removing a photo of the sculpture from a scrapbook. "My stuff will be on Las Vegas Boulevard!"
For that privilege, Brna has largely surrendered her own painting to this monster project; clay is her life now. On a nearby table rest a horseman and a standing figure she's molded, which, when finished, will likely become one generally overlooked detail in an abundance of similar details encrusting the Venetian. Brna estimates she's spent 28 hours on it.
"I'm really putting all my creative energy into this," she says. During the rare lull, she may work on a quick pastel drawing, but, for now this is her art. She says, with a small sigh, "My next opening will be when this opens."
Is it art? Well, it certainly is a living, which is just as important. And it's at least artistic in its process, so Brna hasn't had to abandon her muse entirely. "No matter what I do," she says, "it seems to take on my personality. Thank God for that, because otherwise I'd feel like a factory artist." It's as vital as ever to her that the work be just so, every detail precise, down to the folds in a tiny figure's clothing. "Even if it's 50 feet up, it's important that it have all those things."
Brna is aware of the irony of churning out pretend-cultural objects for an industry regularly accused of turning its back on local culture. But, she points out, no one but gaming has the money or inclination to support artists in this fashion, the way the Florentine nobility, for example, patronized Renaissance artists. "It's like working for the Medicis," she says, even if Sheldon Adelson makes an unlikely Lorenzo Medici.
In fact, she can't get over this whole thing! "What's great is that I'm getting paid to redo Venice," she says.
There are 15 binders on the shelf behind Bob Hlusak's desk at Treadway Industries, the company overseeing the fabrication of the hotel's many statues, columns, friezes, balustrades and other faux Venicia.
The binders hold many of the 3,000 photos Hlusak and another Treadways employee snapped during a fact-finding mission to the old city last March. (He's returned three times; faking old architectural details -- it's not just a job, it's an adventure.) Each illustrates details Treadway must carefully replicate. "From our end, it's as close as we can get it," Hlusak says. If you guessed from his long hair and easy demeanor that he's an artist himself, you'd be right, although now he wears the dress slacks and fancy title of an executive vice president and design manager.
The developers "want this to be a cultural thing, not just another frigging themed casino," he says. "They want it to have historical value."
Not all of the dozen or so artists working for Treadway have the work-at-home deal Brna does. Through a window in the rear of his office, Hlusak can look out into the 37,000-square-foot operation -- set up especially for this project -- where artists are shaping foam sculptures. (Treadway has an even bigger concrete-casting facility nearby). The process: Computer-guided cutting units shave a block of foam into a rough of the desired shape. "The artist then takes a chainsaw, a hot wire, knives, whatever, and finds the sculpture hiding inside there." A hard plastic coating is the final step.
So, well, no, it's probably not art; "artifacts" is more accurate. Nonetheless, says Hlusak, "We're asking them to use their skills, to be creative about being authentic." The artists are perfectly willing, and, of course, why shouldn't they be? Few of us get to earn a check doing even a commercialized approximation of what we love. Says sculptor Monica Roer from her seat in the clay-molding room, "This company is giving Las Vegas artists a chance. It's a good opportunity for us." As word gets around, Hlusak says, other artists show up: I hear you're doing cool stuff .
As ancient Venice extended its influence, Hlusak says, it absorbed architectural mannerisms from everywhere else into a style that, in the canal-refracted light, became its own. "Venice style is basically a mix of everything from the known world," Hlusak says. Parallel city! Because Vegas is a catch basin for architectural styles, welded by the neon glow into a recognizable Vegaesthetic. And so, in that way, perhaps, the Venetian artists are akin to the artisans of the original, old city, waiting for time to give their handiwork the gloss of art and, in the meantime, content with being paid to redo Venice.
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