Beyond the tourist corridor’s flash, Las Vegas’ art community has been making, collecting and showing great art for years. From established organizations to those in the making, from the Downtown gallery scene to blue-chip public art all over the city, art in Las Vegas is fascinating, varied and defi nitely on the rise. Of course, the excitement is fueled by people, and here we profi le the local art world’s most pivotal players, from its public faces to those moving the needle behind the scenes.
TIM BAVINGTON
When Tim Bavington’s colorful sculpture “Pipe Dream” became a prominent fixture at Symphony Park, he was years into a successful career, with works in museum collections, including New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, and representation by Mark Moore Fine Art in Los Angeles. But it was this vertical interpretation of Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”—constructed of painted steel, with colors assigned to the notes—that elevated his profile in Las Vegas, where the English-born artist moved in 1993 and where he studied under famed art critic Dave Hickey as an MFA student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Bavington, who continues his studio practice in the Arts District, is now in his fourth year of teaching at UNLV. His show at New York’s Morgan Lehman Gallery, featuring works inspired by the LP Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color, ran this past fall, and he is about to unveil a sculpture similar to “Pipe Dream” in Dallas. Meanwhile, his first local work in 12 years—an exhibit of watercolors— opens in November at MCQ Fine Art Advisory.
While he refers to his success in art as “luck,” Bavington disproves the common sentiment that artists must live on either coast to build a thriving career.
