CityCenter to Showcase World-Famous Art

The CityCenter Fine Art Program will encompass a multitude of styles and media ranging from sculptures and paintings to large-scale installations, engaging visitors on both a visual and intellectual level.  Some will be existing pieces, carefully chosen for their artistic value and cultural significance; others will be site-specific installations for which the artist has been invited to command their vision over the space.

The contemporary masterpieces will transform CityCenter into a living, breathing museum of iconic works of art. The collection will be enjoyed throughout CityCenter's public spaces from the gaming resort, hotel, and residential towers to its spectacular retail and entertainment district. Each piece has been selected specifically for the space in which it resides, evoking the personality of its surroundings. The artwork has been paired with CityCenter's unique architecture to create a sensory journey that present the works in a never-before-seen fashion.

"This venture marks the only corporate collection ever to join such a multitude of media, styles, and artists and make it accessible in such a highly visible and public manner," said Michele C. Quinn, curatorial advisor for the CityCenter Fine Art Program. "Delivering this caliber of artwork demonstrates the ambition of MGM MIRAGE to create a cultural centerpiece for Las Vegas."

CityCenter will feature prominent works from some of the world's most influential artists:

Maya Lin - For CityCenter's gaming resort, New York-based Maya Lin is creating her first work of art in Las Vegas: an approximately 120-foot silver cast of the Colorado River that will be suspended high above the reception area. Lin is using reclaimed silver to develop her creation in the spirit of CityCenter's commitment to sustainability and in light of Nevada's standing as the "Silver State." As both artist and architect, Lin's work reflects a strong interest in the environment, a commitment she also has served as an advisor on sustainable energy use, and as a board member of the National Resources Defense Council. Considered to be one of the most important public artists of the century, Lin, whose highly acclaimed body of work includes the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., also has become a celebrated architect. Her life and work were detailed in the Academy Award-winning documentary, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision.

Jenny Holzer - Artist Jenny Holzer made her mark in 1976 with her first public work, Truisms, which made profound statements in the form of anonymous broadsheets pasted on buildings, walls, and fences in and around Manhattan. Her text later took the forms of posters, monumental and electronic signs, billboards, television, and her signature medium: LED signs. At CityCenter, Holzer's work will make a stirring impact. As guests approach the porte cochere at The Harmon Hotel, Spa & Residences, they will be welcomed by one of the artist's insightful LED signs spanning 387 feet wide. Most recently, Holzer's work has been seen in Washington, D.C., with her collection, "For the Capitol," which incorporates nighttime projections of quotes by presidents John F. Kennedy and Theodore Roosevelt about the role of art and culture in American society.

Nancy Rubins - A sculptor and artisan famous for her grandiose works created from salvaged and industrial consumer goods, Nancy Rubins will create one of the most visually stunning commissions at CityCenter with a larger scale version of her famous installation, Big Pleasure Point.  Measuring 40 feet tall, 50 feet wide and 70 feet long, Rubins' work of art at CityCenter will be a colorful composition of numerous rowboats, kayaks, canoes, small sailboats, surfboards, wind-surf boards, jet skis, paddle boats, catamarans, and other small river and ocean vessels that are finessed into a gravity-defying form that is both delicately balanced and precisely engineered. Rubins maintains the look, shape, and feel of her chosen objects, so each craft showcased in the piece will be exactly as originally found. The commission will be located on the exterior of Vdara Condo Hotel and will be one of Rubins' few works with a permanent home.  Rubins has designed amazing works of art from mattresses, trailers, hot water heaters, airplanes, and small appliances since the 1970s. For more than 25 years, Rubins has exhibited extensively around the world in major solo and group exhibitions.

Richard Long - Veer Towers will feature two large-scale commissioned works by Richard Long. Entitled Circle of Life and Earth, Long's two mud wall drawings will measure 80 feet high by 50 feet wide each and be displayed on Veer's west and east tower walls, respectively. An English sculptor, photographer, and painter, Long is one of the best-known British land and conceptual artists. His art showcases his appreciation for nature and the majority of his works are inspired by natural landscapes he has encountered while hiking. During his walks, Long often creates sculptures using natural materials in the environment such as leaves, twigs, and stones, and then photographs the end result to forever capture his work. Long is the only artist to be short-listed for the Turner Prize four times. He was nominated in 1984, 1987, and 1988, and won the award in 1989 for White Water Line.

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen - Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas will feature Typewriter Eraser, Scale X, 1998-1999, an iconic piece by Oldenburg and van Bruggen. Designed with the pair's classic approach to creating large-scale outdoor sculptures of popular commercial objects, the 5-ton, 19-foot stainless steel and fiberglass sculpture depicts a giant blue and red typewriter eraser with the bristles of the brush turned upward in a graceful, dynamic gesture. Scale X is the largest of three sculptures created of the form, beginning in the 1970s. Oldenburg and van Bruggen have collaborated on more than 40 monumental projects throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States. Their most recent work is the 144-foot-long, 64-foot-high Cupid's Span for Rincon Park on the Embarcadero in San Francisco.

Frank Stella - For the reception desk at CityCenter's Vdara Condo Hotel, MGM MIRAGE has purchased one of artist Frank Stella's most prominent works. Damascus Gate I, originally created in 1969, features a design of interlaced semicircles made of fluorescent and alkyd resin on a 96-by-384-inch canvas affixed to a horizontal base.  Recognized for more than 45 years for his contributions to the forms of Abstract Expressionism, sculpture, and the concept of the shaped canvas, Stella's work has been the subject of several retrospectives in the United States, Europe, and Japan.  In 1970, The Museum of Modern Art in New York presented a retrospective of Stella's work.  An authority and critic in his own right, Stella presided over the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard University from 1983-1984, which were published by Harvard University Press in 1986. 

Henry Moore  - Within CityCenter's gaming resort, guests will find Reclining Connected Forms, 1969-1974, a sculpture by Henry Moore inspired by the fundamentals of the human experience - the primary theme of his life's work. Measuring 10.17 by 17 by 7.70 feet, the abstract work of art displays a baby wrapped in its mother's embrace. The graceful outer shell of the sculpture depicts the changing shape of a pregnant figure as it protects the new life growing within. Moore's work was traditionally inspired by the human body, organic shapes found in nature, and the sculpture of ancient and exotic cultures such as Egypt, Sumeria, Africa, and pre-Columbian Mexico. Surrealism, the modern European art and literary movement with a tendency toward abstract forms, also was a major influence.