Got game

“Gaming and the casinos are part of everyone’s life who lives here or has lived here,” says Donnelyn Curtis, head of special collection for the University of Nevada, Reno libraries. “For some people it’s a bigger part. They had jobs or they engaged in the things that happened in the casinos—gambling or going to the shows. For other people, it’s kind of in the peripheral vision, but you can’t not notice it. It’s part of our lives.”

For the third year in a row, Curtis has helped organize a large summer art exhibition sprawling through all five floors for the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center, the university’s primary library. In 2011, the exhibition was Postwar Bohemians in Northern Nevada. Last year, it was Far Out: The University Art Scene, 1960-1975. Those two exhibitions focused on Northern Nevada art from specific time periods. For this summer’s exhibition, Curtis wanted to refocus. Moving strictly chronologically into the ’80s and ’90s would enter into a period perhaps too recent to be approached with a historical perspective. As Curtis says, there’s “too many artists and too much politics”—too many local artists who are still active and competing for attention. But she wanted to continue the tradition of the last two shows.

“I was trying to capture the feeling that those shows had, which was, local artists, a kind of nostalgia, and different kinds of art,” she says.

Curtis wanted to work again with artist Joan Arrizabalaga, whose casino-themed work was featured in last year’s exhibition. So, Curtis asked Arrizabalaga to curate an exhibition of gambling-themed art.

Arrizabalaga says that gambling has a special appeal to artists.

“It has a philosophical side to it,” she says. “It has a lot to do with chance and luck and how you see things. And of course there’s all the big losers. It’s exciting. It’s very unique to Nevada—at least it used to be in the days of yore.”

The core of the multifaceted exhibition, The Art of Gaming +, is work originally commissioned by Harrah’s Reno through Stremmel Gallery back in the mid 1990s called The Art of Gaming. (The current exhibition amends a “+” to the title to designate that it’s a greatly expanded edition of the earlier show.) The Harrah’s exhibition had been throughout the hotel-casino’s then new tower, then called the Hampton Inn. It featured sculptures by local and regional artists like Arrizabalaga, Larry Williamson, Paul DiPasqua and Dwight Davidson.

Williamson’s wood sculptures are probably familiar to local art aficionados. Davidson’s works are comical ceramic depictions of casino scenes featuring gambling farm animals. DiPasqua’s funky assemblage “Hobby Horse,” which appears to depict three-dimensional playing card characters made of household junk, is prominently exhibited in the Knowledge Center’s atrium.

The new exhibition adds casino-themed work by painters Bob Adams and Mick Sheldon, as well slot machines from the collection of Marshall and Franklin Fey, the former owners of the Liberty Belle restaurant, showgirl costumes from the collection of Karen Burns, a former showgirl at the MGM Grand Hotel, and neon signs from the collection of Will Durham, which were recently exhibited at the Nevada Museum of Art. There’s also slot machine conceptual drawings from IGT, sketches by showgirl costume designer Mistinguett, historical photos, and more.

“There were so many things in the casinos that just had that feeling of excitement,” says Arrizabalaga. “And there were so many different artists involved in doing all that. It’s amazing when you really realize. For instance, the costumes. Somebody had to design all that stuff. Somebody has to choreograph that huge show.”