The Art We Need, 2024

Each year we ask members of the Las Vegas art community—past, present, near and far—to share art exhibitions, projects and artworks that were especially meaningful to them in the past year. We ask our creative community what art spoke to them, uplifted, challenged or fortified them during these challenging times. Submissions are collected on our Instagram page. Some of our favorite submissions are collected below. Thanks to Emily Budd, Iulia Filipov-Serediuc, Brent Holmes, Kayla Lockwood, Erin Stellmon, Holly Lay, Dan Fischer, Emmanuel Muñoz, Geovany Uranda, Patricia D. Burns, D.K. Sole, Diane Bush, Erin K Drew for their reflections.

Check out @Couch In The Desert for the full series and further commentary.

Shared by Emily Budd : the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama: The Legacy Museum, The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and Freedom Monument Sculpture Park.

“The Art that moved me the most in 2024 was the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama: The Legacy Museum, The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. I visited the sites right after the presidential election- at the end of a week that was emotionally hard despite how many times we’ve been through it by now, because our country overwhelmingly denied leadership to a public-serving, intelligent black woman to vote in favor of furthering the reach of racism and misogyny. The memorial’s design combines poetic reflection with an architectural narrative experience. The steel monuments both define and impede a path that slowly descends into vast depths of loss, each listing names of lynching victims that add up to an endless era of racial terror. As the path falls, the countless monuments remain suspended on an equal field.…I thought it was the most American museum I’ve been to."

Shared by Iulia Filipov-Serediuc: “Soma” by Laura Esbensen, the final show in Core Contemporary, December 2024.

”Esbensen's work is exciting. 'Soma' builds tension between materiality with vinyl, gel capsules, and concrete, building Frankensteins throughout the gallery. Many works in this show combined the grotesque, offputting, and visually enticing, creating an aversion that I couldn't look away from. As the final show in Core Contemporary, it highlighted the gallery's legacy: punchy, bold, and resounding.”

Shared by Brent Holmes: The Holland Project Reno Billboard Program. Artwork by Paige Gomez pictured here, photo courtesy of the Holland Project.

“The Holland Project Reno's Billboard program was an absolute inspiration. Seeing the work of artists from all over Nevada looming over the biggest little city's skyline was entertaining poignant and impactful in equal measure.”

Shared by Kayla Lockwood: “From Grain to Pixel: Contemporary Chinese Photography” was recently on view at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art in Las Vegas.

Huang Yan’s Chinese Landscape Series exemplifies the deeper themes at the heart of [the exhibit]. By painting Literati-inspired landscapes onto his own body, he brings ancient Chinese art traditions into dialogue with modern photographic technology, echoing the exhibition’s focus on cultural and technological transitions. As my opinion piece stresses, the surge of individual expression and personal storytelling in 1990s China mirrors Las Vegas’s own multifaceted evolution. Huang Yan’s fusion of tradition and innovation—using his body as canvas—perfectly underscores how artists have responded to swiftly changing societal landscapes, resonating with the exhibition’s global perspective and enduring relevance.”

Shared by Erin Stellmon: Between death and, a film by Catherine Borg and Lynn Silverman at The Parlor, Baltimore MD.

"This film documents a former funeral parlor that served the Baltimore community for over 100 years. It is a perfectly paced reflection on death and the temporal nature of everything we are.
The film was projected in one of the newly restored areas of the parlor, but I had been lucky to have visited the space before the renovation, and reliving that memory through moments of the film was a layer I didn’t expect to be so profoundly emotional. We are bracing for a tough four years coming up, but this film reminds us to celebrate life with the people sharing our spaces at
this particular time in our specific corner of the world."

Posted and published by Erin K. Drew on January 12, 2025.