Couple’s exit leaving void in Vegas art scene

By Kristen Peterson

Friday, May 21, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.

For nearly two decades, the presence of art critic Dave Hickey and his wife, curator-historian Libby Lumpkin, alerted the art and literary world that there was more to this town than gambling and entertainment.

Their credentials shined in a city searching for sophistication.

Hickey was named by the MacArthur Foundation in 2001 as one of its fellowship grant recipients, certifying his genius.

And Lumpkin’s role as curator of the first fine-art gallery on the Strip — Steve Wynn’s collection at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art — helped expand the perception of what this town had to offer. As executive director of the Las Vegas Art Museum, she brought it national attention by landing important contemporary exhibits from major collectors and museums.

But now Las Vegas is losing the duo to Albuquerque, where the couple met and Lumpkin was Hickey’s teaching assistant.

Lumpkin has been made a tenured professor in art history at the University of New Mexico. Hickey will teach art there.

Their departure this summer will be bittersweet, their absence celebrated by some and mourned by others.

“Dave and Libby, as a couple, have been the single most cohesive force in the intellectual life of Las Vegas and Southern Nevada and Las Vegas has not supported them in the way we should have,” says Roger Thomas, art collector and executive vice president of design for Wynn Design and Development.

“They single-handedly stimulated the intellectual community and the visual arts in Las Vegas in a way that had not been done and may never happen again. They are the only blue-ribbon, card-carrying force to hit Las Vegas. These are people with international reputations for thinking and inspiring thought.”

Hickey, a famous art critic and author of “Air Guitar” and “The Invisible Dragon,” brought international attention here while teaching Master of Fine Arts students at UNLV. Lumpkin, a noted art historian, also taught there.

Christopher Hudgins, dean of UNLV’s College of Liberal Arts, says the loss of Hickey and Lumpkin will have a “very negative impact on the university, on our nationally ranked creative writing programs, and on the community in general, and on the arts community very specifically, given both of their national and international reputations and their reach and influence.”

But Hudgins adds, “I don’t think that Dave and Libby’s leaving, while hugely unfortunate, is part of a Las Vegas ‘brain drain,’ as some have posited.”

Hickey first served at UNLV as a visiting professor and was later hired by then-President Robert Maxson, who Hickey says wanted him to “shake up the moribund art department.” Some members of the department resented him.

After Maxson left, his successor, Carol Harter, didn’t share the same agenda, Hickey said. (Harter was unavailable for comment, and UNLV officials declined to comment.) “I went from a good guy to a bad guy overnight.”

Lumpkin was also battling with faculty members who said she lacked collegiality. The hostility within the art department became so pitched that Hickey and Lumpkin in 2003 left for Long Beach, Calif. Two years later they returned to Las Vegas — with Hickey hired by UNLV’s English Department, and Lumpkin taking over as Las Vegas Art Museum’s executive director.

When the museum closed in 2009, a victim of the crashing economy, Lumpkin became curator of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. She says she’ll continue to be a consultant to the center.

Both say they love Las Vegas, but neither has many kind words for UNLV.

“My main regret is waiting too long for the kind of change in leadership that is needed at UNLV,” Lumpkin says, declining to elaborate.

Says Hickey: “I guess I ought to admit that I’ve screwed up. This is the first time I left a work situation not better than when I came. I haven’t been able to make a dent in this pedagogical community. But there are good people there,” specifically citing Hudgins and English professor and novelist Douglas Unger, co-founder of the MFA Creative Writing International Program.

In the art department, Hickey gathered talented graduate students, some of whom found successful careers in art after studying under him.

“There was a buzz about the place,” says artist Tim Bavington, who studied with Hickey and has a studio in downtown Las Vegas. “He was to the art department what Jerry Tarkanian was to the basketball department — a controversial coach, indicted by his peers.”

Many outside of UNLV and Las Vegas saw the value of his influence.

“There were art dealers looking here,” Bavington says. “They were paying attention to what was going on here. Within two months of graduation I had two solo shows scheduled, one in Los Angeles and another in Texas. Within 18 months, I had my first show in New York.”

Lumpkin says she loves New Mexico, but is not looking forward to leaving. “I have a lot of friends here and have had the opportunity to work with some of the most interesting people who are creative and entrepreneurial in their thinking.”

But, she says she wants to spend “more time on research and in libraries than at lunches.”

“I wish I could have done that here,” she says. “Career-wise, I’m going to have an opportunity to do what I do best.”

Hickey, who contributes to Vanity Fair and Harpers, says he doesn’t plan to write about living here once he’s gone.

“I was wrong about things,” he says. “I thought you could build on something here. I thought it was a little less-covert city. I didn’t understand what being a Mormon meant, what Opus Dei meant. They sort of exercise a lot of negative power here.

“Improving the intellectual reach of graduates has been my task. I have done that, but they have nearly all left town. There’s no intellectual critical mass here.”

Still, he says he’ll miss Las Vegas.

“I love Las Vegas. We had fun here. When I want (Italian food) at 2 in the morning, I’ll know where I am.”