Artists ‘Come Together’ for Life Is Beautiful
“Come Together.”
It’s not the official motto for Life Is Beautiful’s arts component, but the Beatles tune could serve as a theme song for the various arts offerings at this weekend’s downtown festival.
Not surprisingly, “Come Together” describes a Sunday afternoon collaboration between the Las Vegas Philharmonic and Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles show, “Love.”
But it also characterizes a mural created by artists Tim Bavington and Sush Machida on the side of Fremont Street’s Emergency Arts Building.
And it conveys the collective spirit of “ART-tales,” 15 site-specific installations farther east on Fremont Street, located inside — and outside — the shuttered Western Hotel, where the festival’s learning component is based.
“We’re not taking existing inventory” for the exhibits, says curator Patrick Duffy, president of the Las Vegas Art Museum, who also curated last year’s fine art gallery program. “Excitingly, it’s all going to be fresh, new.”
Festival officials invited 89 artists and organizations to participate; 47 responded and, from that group, the festival chose “the 15 we have exhibiting now,” Duffy says.
Most of the “ART-tales” participants are local, presenting painting and sculpture, along with videos, room installations and more. Among them: an experimental, online and on-site “documentary fiction” work — dubbed “Life Is Beautiful?” — drawing on theater, film, social media, literature and photography.
A digital video focuses on an abandoned building in downtown Las Vegas — from the perspective of the soon-to-be-doomed building itself.
And an exterior water sculpture outside the Western recalls roadside motels as five pool slides drip water into inflatable wading pools — which are positioned on sidewalks covered with sod and punctuated by lawn chairs.
“We’re a city that really can embrace the unique,” Duffy says. “We have a great opportunity at Life Is Beautiful to demonstrate that art is alive and well and thriving in Las Vegas.”
The festival’s street art program also returns, with participants ranging from British returnee D*Faceto Italy’s Edoardo Tresoldi, who makes his U.S. debut at Life Is Beautiful with three-dimensional figures sculpted from metallic wire mesh.
Even before this weekend’s festival, artists Bavington (best known for his colorful “Fanfare for the Common Man” outside The Smith Center) and Machida were working on their mural (which was untitled at press time), a first-time collaboration between two longtime friends.
Although their artistic approaches differ, “we went back and forth and bounced ideas off each other,” Bavington says. “It was like a game of ‘Telephone’ — Sush did some things, then I suggested another little area.”
Bavington, who joined the UNLV art faculty earlier this year, praised Life Is Beautiful’s art program for its blend of in- and out-of-town artists.
“It’s nice to see the mixture of them both,” he says. “I think downtown, from where I’m looking, is getting to be a very interesting place when it comes to wall art.”
Sight and sound, meanwhile, merge Sunday afternoon when the Las Vegas Philharmonic performs a 40-minute Beatles tribute, adapted specifically for Life Is Beautiful by Giles Martin, Cirque du Soleil’s “Love” music director.
Their performance will climax with a 15-minute presentation featuring more than 50 “Love” performers, according to “Love” head coach Dan Niehaus.
From “Get Back” — which mixes “high-energy dance and acrobatic elements” with video footage of the Beatles’ famous 1969 rooftop concert — to “Here Comes the Sun,” featuring an aerial contortion act, the performance will “provide the feel of our show in a nutshell,” Niehaus says. “We didn’t want off-the-shelf routines.”
What they did want: a collaboration that “showcases the talent we have in this community,” he says, adding that “Life Is Beautiful is outstanding in presenting local talent.”
Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.
