Third Rail Books

Book Review: Street Art Las Vegas

BY: VITTORIA BENZINE – STREET ART UNITED STATES

On April 12th, 2019 William Shea and Patrick Lai released their joint project Street Art Las Vegas. The book, published by local outfit Smallworks Press, outlines the intricacies of the city’s evolving street art scene. With special thanks given to entities like Las Vegas Arts District and City of Las Vegas, the pages burst with hometown pride and helpful advice to the readers they will inspire to visit. This new compilation stands out for its vibrant photography, which illustrates a city housing uniquely energetic public art.

Shea and Lai share a rich history with the city of Las Vegas. Their “about the authors” section explains that both attended UNLV, where Shea studied photography and writing, and Lai “enrolled in the computer science and fine arts degree program.” Shea “is a professional photographer, writer, and artist” while Lai “is a professional landscape and street art photographer.” Though he moved to Las Vegas from the Boston area to pursue his career in the casino industry, Shea believes that the city should focus on becoming a more well-rounded cultural destination in the post-recession landscape. As such, he’s been heavily involved in the city’s art institutions, working as a “graphic and editorial designer while serving as the treasurer of the Las Vegas Arts District” since November 2016. Lai provides his complimentary expertise in photography with his “commitment to producing only the highest quality images.” 

The introduction to the book was written by Ed Fuentes, a famed “Las Vegas artist and scene champion” whose death Las Vegas Weekly reported on in February. His inclusion in the book renders it especially poignant. Fuentes’s contribution gets right down to the heart of the matter, as was his standard, noting that “visual disruption is the aesthetic goal for any graffiti artist; it is also a starting point for a region’s contribution to the genre.” He describes the distinct nature of street art in Las Vegas, a transient city due to its reliance on tourism, possessing an obsession with novelty and entertainment, like the proverbial showgirl herself. He explains that before street art stars came to play in the city, its scene was dominated by underground artists, whose work could only be found in back alleyways and the literal underground. Books like Street Art Las Vegas play a crucial role in documenting the works that have existed in this ever-changing landscape.

Street Art Las Vegas divides the city’s street art scene into three neighborhoods: The Arts District, Downtown, and the Outer Limits. The book’s first section outlines the Arts District as a whole, as “the backbone of the cultural art scene within the city.” The following three sections detail more in-depth areas of this renowned neighborhood: South Casino Center Boulevard which runs “striaght through the heart of the Arts District,” West Colorado Avenue which has become “the preferred destination for amateur photographers trying to get a sneak peek at the latest spray art installed in the alleys behind any random property,” and East California Avenue where “hidden graffiti and rooftop pasteups are the norm.” The section on Downtown focuses on its mission to “[reinvent] itself as the main stage for street art and urban living,” with murals from big-name artists like Retna, Gonzalo Borondo, ROA, Fintan Magee, D*Face, Shepard Fairey, and more. The outer limits focuses on art found beyond Las Vegas’s metropolitan areas. Some of the most ambitious, awe-inspiring works in the book are found in this section where “hidden from public view, large-scale projects can be discovered for those willing to venture out, explore, and get dirty.”

Regardless of where one might find any given piece of street art beautifully depicted in this hardcover collector’s item, the body of work published here highlights the city’s daring culture. Compared to the work found in American street art capitals like Los Angeles or New York, the art found in Las Vegas is particularly powerful. While artists’ unique styles are evident in each photo, they have more gritty attitude on the whole. Perhaps given the transient nature of the city, which requires artists to fight for space on a daily basis, the works are calledto make the loudest possible statement. With Street Art Las Vegas, Shea and Lai immortalize those statements, creating a snapshot of one moment in the city’s life, bursting with freneticism, on the edge of the next best thing.

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