A place to buy a piece of CityCenter style

By Kristen Peterson

Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009 | 2 a.m.

CityCenter officials announced this week that a design center will be created to stitch together the high-end architecture, design and public art program at the $8.5 billion project.

CENTERpiece, a retail and gallery space with events and an advisory service, is scheduled to open in December and feature works mostly by the artists and architects of CityCenter.

Maya Lin, Jenny Holzer, Nancy Rubins and Richard Long are among the artists featured in the $40 million art collection. Architects include Cesar Pelli, Daniel Libeskind and Helmut Jahn.

The design center’s inventory will include works on paper, photography, books, objects and even rugs and furniture.

The Sun talked with Michele Quinn, who manages CityCenter’s art collection and owns her own advisory service. Quinn helped plan CENTERpiece, which will be open daily. Nicole Moffatt will be its director.

Why a design space?

It’s about the art and architecture. It was an opportunity to continue their dialogue and form a retail perspective. There is obviously a lot of residential space on the property. If someone comes in and wants a Richard Long, we can go find that for them.

All CityCenter artists and architects?

About 70 percent of the work will be that. We’re looking at a handful of Las Vegas artists, including Sean Hummel and Tim Bavington. We have a Bavington in the collection that is going into a VIP gaming area. We’re opening with a select inventory and will open it up more as things evolve. We won’t take solicitations.

What kind of tourist will CityCenter draw?

There is a niche traveler out there who’s a cultural traveler who will go to see architecture and art. Las Vegas hasn’t had that central focus. We haven’t had something on as grand of a scale as we have now. It’s such a concentration with the Bellagio Gallery next door, the public art collection, the architecture and the design space.

Will this serve as a meeting place for ideas?

It’s definitely going to be a centralizing focus of the culture of CityCenter. Does it provide that same dialogue of a museum? No. It can’t. At the end of the day this is not a cultural institution. It’s a corporate institution with a cultural element.

Will there be a catalog of the collection?

We don’t have a catalog right now. It’s definitely something that most likely will happen in the future. There was no way to photograph the collection until it was installed. Most of it was conceptual.

Will there be postcards and prints of the work in the collection?

We’re not merchandising the works. This will be considered a fine art gallery. We’ll have limited editions of Richard Long, Nancy Rubins and other artists.