The Angel in the Details: Las Vegas through the looking glass
Photographer L.E. Baskow peers through the shattered looking glass and rediscovers Las Vegas in design fragments, a window from the real to the surreal
Las Vegas is known as a city of grand design gestures — in the space of a few city blocks we have, after all, a giant clown, a dancing lake, and a beam of light that can be seen from space. But if we look closer, a thrilling and more abstract city materializes, one of grace notes, strange slivers cut away from the grand kitsch, accidental beauties encountered in passing. In changing the scale of our gaze, we make our familiar spaces suddenly unfamiliar and oddly new. A menagerie of fragments invites us to think differently by seeing differently, and the bright universe we’ve built in this valley reveals itself in the language of angles and curves and reflections. This is tourism for the mind, Las Vegas as it was meant to be — a real trip.
Wing of one of the mythical creatures standing sentry outside Mandalay Bay. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
"On a tour of the new Legacy Lounge atop the Circa back in in 2020," says photographer Baskow, "I stepped onto the expansive deck to take in the sunset and Strip view and saw a glass panel that has been shattered accidentally. On occasion I truly seem to see differently and luckily was able to capture it, the idea of the Strat and city below with a subtle way." (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
The dizzying swirl of city life: a parking lot reflected in the glass of Allegiant Stadium. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
The Pipe Dream art installation mirrored in a rain puddle in Symphony Park. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
A city turned on its head: the rollercoaster in motion at New York-New York. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
Plastic bags snagged on barbed wire in an Arts District alleys. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
Graffiti art on tires in the Arts District. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
How many plates can this valley keep spinning? Sun shades over a playground near Henderson City Hall. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
This strange and humble beauty: an old valve, painted by time and rust. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
The beacon of the Emerald Island Casino in Henderson. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images
Detail of the MGM Lion. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
The flowing robes of Lady Liberty in front of New York-New York. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
A defunct neon sign among power poles in the Arts District. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
A peeling metal sign, its modernist angles somehow evoking unfulfilled optimism, above a shuttered business on West Bonanza Road. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
Neon stars on the Rio marquee. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
The iconic swoop of the Rio tower. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
A piece of cloth bound to a wire on a fence post brings to mind a defiant Don Quixote. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
The remains of a sign on the grounds where the Moulin Rouge once stood. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images
Used spray-paint cans at the foot of a brightly coated wall in the Arts District. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
City of audacious reflection: A kaleidoscopic Las Vegas reveals itself upon the skin of Allegiant Stadium. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
About the only thing missing from Kilo Club is a velvet rope. The most exclusive gym in the valley has done just about everything else to keep the general public at bay.
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