A Dying Art

How romantic, if you're dating Ophelia after she's dumped by Hamlet.

"Be My Suicide"? Not a valentine to love, apparently. Must be one of those dark-night-of-the-soul artistic exercises slathered in Sturm und Drang, but as long as the Prozac holds out, let's head in.

Black. Lots of ... black. On platforms of muted light. Mondo eerie.

There's the flier: "Las Vegas Art Museum 702 Series: Stephen Hendee." It says the 702 series showcases solo work of artists with links to the city, that Hendee's an assistant professor of sculpture at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has been since 2004. Wow, such a detailed examination of the exhibit.

The flier says that " 'Be My Suicide' ... is intended to shake viewers out of complacency. ... But who is actually speaking? Whether the title is an invitation, a dare or an injunction remains deliberately undefined."

You never know whether your interpretations parallel the sculptor's visions. Or is that the point, that it's open-ended, a stimulation of the imagination that sends your mind and soul pinballing to a half-dozen directions at once, a demand by the artist to think for oneself, to not eliminate, but explore creative concepts? Geez, that's so ... intellectual.

Anyway, let's see how the artist's intentions square with a viewer's perceptions.

There's a huge, mangled, black and white hulk centering the room, all jutting, jumbled planks protruding at dangerous angles, coalescing into geometric shapes, bulging out and smushed in, a study in twisted wreckage, juxtaposed against fluorescent floor illumination. Suicide made tangible? White light and black metal seesawing between life and death? Sanity collapsing, leaving the soul a hollow shell?

Back to the flier. It's the burnt-out hull of an SUV. Really? "It's begging the question, 'Why are people trying so hard to kill themselves? ... What is it that fosters this strange indifference toward one's own fate in a culture otherwise so rushed and overstimulated?'"

Over here, and over there, and again over there and there -- small models of coal-black blocks and cylinders, like Legos of death, or charred, fried-out engine parts. The mind in shifting stages of chaos spiraling toward suicidal urges?

"Built topologically from the ground up, layer on top of layer," the flier says. "Are they calling for humanity to be reconstructed from the bottom up?" Questions, just more questions.

Let's see ... a pair of posters, effectively enigmatic. To the left, a man on a plane gazes toward the camera, blinding lights like exploding stars glowing in his eyes, as if stolen from the star baby in "2001: A Space Odyssey." Is he, fresh from self-termination, in flight to an otherworldly place? To the right ... why does that look familiar? From a movie, maybe? A pilot in a cockpit, looking downward toward unseen instruments -- a metaphor for life's control panel short-circuiting?

Says here, "Sober reminders of technology's numbing effects. Major T.J. 'King' Kong, from 'Dr. Strangelove' " -- Kubrick, of course, one of the blackest comedies ever made! -- "about to ride the bomb dropped over the Soviet Union." And the eyes-aglow guy? "It features Hendee himself as a stranger taking over a plane. The posters make up a disturbing diptych: the Cold Warrior ready to annihilate an entire population and the terrorist-artist about to blow himself up, along with a planeload of passengers, to further his own agenda."

Very 9/11-ish -- suicide for a cause teamed with mass murder as a statement.

What's that chamber anchoring the back of the room, padded in dark-gray foam? A recording booth? Airy, open ... foreboding. Can you step inside? ... Ah, yeah. Odd, this feeling. Darkness closing in, but ... not. You can easily escape, and yet ... you can't. The moment teetering between the intention of suicide and the act itself?

Says here, "Once inside the booth, viewers become aware of their own blood rushing through their bodies. ... They may revisit all the elements in the show from this remove, with objects, images and structures merging in the semi-darkness. They may realize the level of their momentary deprivation." Suicide as a simulated, abstract experience? Nothing of the kind?

Whoa. A photo of a tombstone. Engraved, simply, "Space."

Flier says that "the inscription stands as a terminal statement for an entire era. ... Space is missing at its place, but it hasn't yet disappeared. Death can remain alive when unrecognized."

Not sure what that means, but it looks like the grave of Everyman, of Humanity, a symbolic burial ground, waiting for the idea of living to die. ... Actually, who knows what that means, either?

Says here, "The empty tombstone is positioned by the door into the gallery such that viewers can only see the writing on the wall if they look over their shoulders after entering, as Orpheus looked over his shoulder at Eurydice, losing her forever."

Eurydice, isn't she that Greek nymph? Isn't Orpheus eternally stuck on her? Forget it. ... I wonder if Ophelia's free tonight.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0256.