How to tell the genuine from the fake in Las Vegas?
The Michelangelo David at the front entrance of Caesar's Palace attracts hordes every day but is faux. So do the white tigers in the lobby of the Mirage next door and they, to be sure, are real.And so, by the way, are the seven Picassos hanging in the same hotel's top restaurant, Melange. Tap one with your butter knife and watch how fast the security goons rush in.
Take seriously also the giant hoardings that went up last week outside the still unfinished Bellagio Hotel. While other properties along the Strip boast a predictable roster of entertainers past their sell-by dates - Paul Anka, David Cassidy and Wayne Newton - the Bellagio trumpets: "Coming soon, Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir and Cezanne."
A second sign tantalizes: "Special Guests, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse."
The word is out, and it may make you shudder. Las Vegas, the world capital of temptation and tat, is branching out.
To the familiar sinner's brew of roulette, one-armed bandits and fast-as-you-like wedding ceremonies, add a new, altogether unexpected ingredient: fine art and never-before-seen antiquities.
When it opens in October, the Bellagio, conceived by Steve Wynn, the American gaming tycoon and owner of the Mirage, will be more than just the latest word in architectural excess, though it has enough of that.
Meant to evoke the villas of northern Italy, it has its own mini-Lake Como lapping the Strip, quivering cypress trees and 1,100 tinkling fountains.
It will also be crammed, however, with a collection of Impressionist and contemporary art to rival the world's leading galleries. It is already being dubbed the "Louvre of Las Vegas."
Other casinos in Vegas are also dipping into serious art. The MGM Grand, while coy about its plans, is expected to decorate its soon-to-be-built "MGM Mansion" with world-class paintings. In November, the screamingly brash Rio All-Suites and Casino, just off the Strip, will open its doors to the largest exhibition of Romanov Dynasty treasures ever to leave the Peterhof Reserve-Museum in Russia.
No one, however, is likely to rival Wynn, who has surfaced as the most important art buyer in the world. He personally, and the Mirage company he heads, have spent almost $300 million on art in just a few months.
Among his acquisitions, some of which now decorate the Mirage awaiting the completion of Bellagio, is Edgar Degas' `Dancer Taking her Bow' (bought for $12 million), Picasso's `Seated Woman' ($1.65 million) and Alberto Giacometti's `Pointing Man' ($7.35 million).
In March, he paid $50 million for seven contemporary pieces by artists such as Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Lichtenstein and Cy Twombly.
David Nash, a former Sotheby's auctioneer and now a leading dealer in New York, sees in Steve Wynn the same appetites displayed by very wealthy men before him.
"It's in the grand tradition of American industrialists such as Frick and Mellon and Barnes, who have made large sums of money and bought prodigious collections to show off," he noted.
Not everyone has greeted Wynn's spree with such equanimity. Nash concedes that it has "most certainly driven up the price among top-of-the-line pictures." Other collectors are being squeezed out, as well as galleries.