Varied elements come together in ‘L.A. Now’

The defining principle behind "L.A. Now," which opens today at the Las Vegas Art Museum?

"My guiding principle was to get rid of guiding principles," replies David Pagel, who organized the show featuring 20 emerging Los Angeles artists making their Las Vegas debuts.

"I wanted to throw a hodgepodge of things together," explains Pagel, a freelance writer, curator and art critic for the Los Angeles Times who teaches art theory and history at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California. (His Las Vegas connections include a previous LVAM show, last year's "702 Series: Sush Machida Gaikotsu," and two teaching stints as a visiting critic at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 1996 and 2000.)

The various elements in "L.A. Now" range from "lots of paintings" and "lots of sculptures" to photographs, collages and assemblages, he notes.

Disparate they may be, but the featured works share one important attribute, in Pagel's view: They're "not retiring wallflowers. Every work is strong and assertive and confident."

So was Pagel's choice of them, when Las Vegas Art Museum officials (including former museum director Libby Lumpkin, who resigned last week) approached him about organizing the show.

Rather than meticulously reviewing everything he'd seen and choosing from a comprehensive list, "I sat down at my desk and, pen to paper, jotted down the names of the artists whose exhibitions were most memorable, whose works had stayed in my mind's eye most vividly," Pagel writes in an essay featured in the exhibit catalogue.

After all, "If the art's not memorable, it's not working," he says.

And, somewhat to his surprise, the artworks work better together than Pagel expected.

"You won't like everything there," he acknowledges, "but you'll have to like something there. If you did like everything -- you're me."

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