open air museum

Description

Stephen Hendee's "The Pinpoint Remains" is on display at the Rotunda Gallery at the Clark County Government Center in downtown Las Vegas through July 27, 2012. Hendee's site-specific sculpture installation references the architecture of the Clark County Government Center and the natural desert landscape, while calling attention to the lack of place experienced amidst the man-made artificial environment of Las Vegas. Made with humble materials and without the fluorescent lights commonly used by the artist in previous works, these boulder-like forms will emit a soft fluorescent glow that shifts with the perspective of the viewer as he/she moves through the space. Man's vulnerable relationship with technology and nature are continuous threads within the artist's work. Hendee is known for his site-specific environments that resemble ruins of a future past, either as immersive futuristic environments of polypropylene, fluorescent lights and gels or as the more recent speculative historical examination of textiles and crafts from a future, "The Ice Next Time" produced at a Goldwell Open Air Museum Red Barn residency in April 2010 and presented at the Marjorie Barrick Museum in Las Vegas. Stephen Hendee is an artist who exhibits nationally and internationally at renowned venues including PS.1 Contemporary Art Center, The New Museum, Sculpture Center and The Whitney Museum Of American Art at Altria in New York. After receiving degrees in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute and Stanford University, his work has been recognized with prestigious awards and grants including the Pollock Krasner Foundation award, a Louis Tiffany Comfort award, an Elizabeth Foundation grant, the Kirin Contemporary Art Award in Japan, and locally, the 2007 Nevada Arts Council Fellowship. His public artwork, "Monument to the Simulacrum" a time capsule commemorating the Las Vegas Centennial was named one of 2007's top ten public artworks in the nation by Art in America. "The Ice Next Time" will be presented next at the old Grand Rapids Public Museum as part of ArtPrize 2012, curated by Paul Amenta. After living and working in Las Vegas for seven years as an assistant professor of art at UNLV, Stephen Hendee relocated to Baltimore, Maryland last August where he is a professor at Maryland Institute College of Art. For more information, visit www.ClarkCountyNV.gov.