Renovated Marjorie Barrick Museum reopens with ‘Into the Light’ exhibit

Officially, Homecoming at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas doesn't start till Oct. 29.

But another campus homecoming begins next week, when the renovated Marjorie Barrick Museum reopens with works by numerous UNLV-trained artists.

They're well represented in the inaugural exhibit, "Into the Light," which spotlights the museum's role as the new home of the Las Vegas Art Museum collection.

LVAM, which began as an art league in the '50s and became a museum in 1974, closed in 2009, a victim of hard economic times; its collection has been in secure storage since then.

Funding cuts also threatened the Barrick Museum, which opened in 1969 in the third-oldest building on campus, a former gymnasium with the wooden floor to prove it.

That is, until the museum became part of UNLV's College of Fine Arts last year, giving both the institution, and the LVAM collection, a future.

"That's what's important about this reopening - it re-establishes the fact that there is a collection," says UNLV art curator Jerry Schefcik .

Not all 200 works in LVAM's permanent collection will be on display at the Barrick Museum; there's not enough room.

Besides, some of the works already are on display - at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts downtown, at UNLV's Donna Beam Gallery and in the lobby of Artemus Ham Hall.

About two-thirds of the collection will be featured at the Barrick Museum, Schefcik says.

And, "number-one most important," much of the collection "represents a great deal of UNLV students," said Patrick Duffy, president of LVAM's board of trustees.

Many of those UNLV alumni participated in LVAM's blockbuster 2007 show "Las Vegas Diaspora: The Emergence of Contemporary Art from the Neon Homeland." Curated by former UNLV art professor Dave Hickey, the show featured 26 artists who studied with him. (Hickey's wife, Libby Lumpkin, was LVAM's director at the time.)

Many of those artists donated works to LVAM, Duffy notes.

But "Into the Light" explores even earlier chapters of LVAM history, going back to 1956 and the art league's first acquisition: Mary Cady Johnson's red- and blue-splashed "Bahanias ," which depicts a group of four women in Caribbean attire, complete with wrapped headscarves and flouncy blouses.

From there, "Into the Light" showcases a wide range of themes and styles, from landscapes and still lifes to portraits and abstracts.

There's the stark geometry of artist Bradley Corman's machined aluminum sculptures. The blue, coral and white pebbled swirls of Las Vegas-based Jack Hallberg's abstract "Jabber No. 2." Tiny peaks of paint give an untitled abstract by Michael Reafsnyder a three-dimensional look, while star-spangled images - from toy soldiers to a George Washington portrait - make up Audrey Flack's "Fourth of July Still Life." (Which the museum acquired in - when else? - 1976.)

If there's a single word to describe the exhibit, it's "eclectic," Duffy says.

And its message to museum visitors? "Whether you love it, whether you hate it, ladies and gentlemen of Las Vegas, come on out and take a look at it," he suggests. "Bring open eyes - and an open mind."

When LVAM (then located at the Sahara West Library) closed, "we were approached by a lot of out-of-state institutions," Duffy recalls, which was "very flattering."

Other organizations - some local, some in Reno - also approached LVAM officials about its artworks, but the agreement with UNLV makes "this collection a little bit more accessible," in Duffy's view.

Which is exactly as it should be, Schefcik contends.

"There needs to be an art museum in Vegas," he says. "There should be a gathering art for the public that represents the artists who lived here. This is a terrific beginning to that."

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.