Museums a tough sell in Las Vegas — to tourists and locals alike

A group of local art lovers is giving it a go to create a fine art museum.

More power to them.

This is not the first group of Las Vegans to launch an effort to create a fine art museum here. Nor are they a naive bunch. They’ve seen previous failures.

There was a Las Vegas Art Museum. It began about 1950 as an art league, rose to the level of fine art museum in 1974, moved to the West Sahara Library in 1997 and went belly up in 2009.

With luck and successful fundraising, Las Vegas might one day boast The Art Museum at Symphony Park, a 100,000-square-foot structure that would house the first standalone fine arts museum in the valley.

The group has raised $2 million so far, and the city of Las Vegas agreed to match the $2 million if the hopefuls can bump their funding up to $4 million. The city said it would provide up to 1.5 acres of land and parking as well.

But $6 million is a pittance compared with the museum’s estimated $85 million cost. It’s going to take serious fundraising to make this happen. A board headed by Katie O’Neill, the great-granddaughter of rough-and-tumble gamer Benny Binion, has taken the lead.

Symphony Park already houses The Smith Center for the Performing Arts and the Discovery Children’s Museum. The city wants to turn that 61-acre area into a cultural hub.

But museums are a tough sell in Las Vegas — to tourists and locals alike.

The Bellagio Fine Art Gallery opened in 1998 and had trouble luring locals. By 2005, gallery officials said Nevadans accounted for about 10 percent of overall ticket sales. It featured traveling fine arts shows designed by other museums.

The Venetian opened in 1999 and by 2001 offered two museums, the Guggenheim Hermitage and the Guggenheim Las Vegas. I enjoyed both. But they didn’t draw enough visitors or locals.

When I wrote about the out-of-whack balance between local and tourist visitors in 2005, I was told only 4 percent were locals at the two Guggenheim museums at The Venetian. The Guggenheim Las Vegas closed in 2003 and the Guggenheim Hermitage closed in 2008.

Locals told me museums in hotels were too expensive and they didn’t want to visit museums on the Strip.

Museums that cover a particular niche do better in Las Vegas: The Mob Museum, the Neon Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Atomic Testing Museum, the Springs Preserve’s Origin Museum, the Nevada State Museum, the Barrick Museum at UNLV and the Clark County Museum. I’ve been to them all and enjoyed every one. But they are not fine art museums.

In Seattle, art is part of the city’s culture. but that doesn’t seem to hold true in enigmatic Las Vegas, where art is either loved or loathed.

Who can forget the hostile reaction to the Flashlight at UNLV? Or even the Seven Magic Mountains south of town? I was bashed by readers for supporting that art installation.

On last week’s trip to Seattle, I visited the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum and the Seattle Asian Art Museum, which fall into the category of museums that one can “do” in a couple of hours if you ramble slowly, or less time if you scurry and look, rather than read.

I loved them both. The Chihuly was a photographer’s dream. The Asian museum was pure pleasure.

Yes, I’m hoping that The Art Museum at Symphony Park becomes a reality.

And yes, I know there are many who would rather see money go to improving education or health needs.

But if art lovers want to take the lead to create a museum, I’m not about to tell them how to spend that money. Especially since I’m one of the Las Vegans most likely to enjoy it.

The Review-Journal is owned by the family of Sheldon Adelson, chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp., which operates The Venetian.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column runs Thursdays. Leave messages for her at 702-383-0275 or email jmorrison@reviewjournal.com. Find her on Twitter: @janeannmorrison