Think Vegas

Las Vegas is one of the world’s most impressive centres of the entertainment industry and of postmodern and vernacular design. As a city it embodies many of the cultural, economic and ecological paradigms of the late 20^th Century. Las Vegas is a place of tourism and transit, and its built environment presents us with a physical analogue to a hyper-reality we might experience online. But it is also a functioning city with a permanent population and a history parallel to the Casino boom. How do today’s millennial generation of artists respond and relate to this context, and what would the visual stimuli and ‘structures of feeling’ of such a city offer to those brought up within an image saturated and networked culture? Zabludowicz Collection Las Vegas residency programme will launch in November 2015, emerging out of the Zabludowicz family’s ownership of real estate in Downtown Vegas, and their longstanding interest in exploring how different aspects of contemporary visual culture might coexist in the city.

As a culmination of the inaugural residency, Zabludowicz Collection will initiate a two-day symposium, Think Vegas, 6-8 Dec 2015. This symposium invites artists, curators, historians and critics to discover and discuss the current arts scene in Las Vegas and possibilities for its evolution as a cultural and creative centre. Held across a number of different locations around the city, the symposium will ask why Las Vegas is interesting for artists and curators. What role can art play in a city that prioritises entertainment and attractions and what would be the necessary catalysts to develop the cultural infrastructure of the city? In what ways might we be able to engineer the creative ecology of the area? By bringing together a group of key international figures in the art world, it is hoped that the discussions and outcomes from the symposium might offer a roadmap for the future growth of the arts in Las Vegas.

Please note the symposium is fully booked