Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Issue 1 | Page 123

The Guggenheim opened two branches in Las Vegas in ����, both in the Venetian Hotel. The Guggenheim Las Vegas and the Guggenheim Hermitage were both designed by Rem Koolhaas. The Venetian paid for them, made other undisclosed contributions and shared operating income with the Guggenheim (Haacke ����:���). Guggenheim Las Vegas closed after �� months and one exhibition. The Guggenheim Hermitage closed in ����. The Las Vegas Guggenheim branches were done in partnership with other cash-strapped museums, namely the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. “Their ostensible common purpose is to mount shows from their respective collections in Las Vegas, Bilbao, New York, and in Venice, occasionally sponsored by Deutsche Bank” (Haacke ����:���). The Berlin and Las Vegas Guggenheim branches, as well as the Hermitage Las Vegas, are noteworthy because, unlike the Guggenheim Bilbao, which was developed in partnership with the Basque government, they are partnerships with private-sector actors. The Guggenheim’s most recent undertakings, in Helsinki and Abu Dhabi, return to the original approach of partnering primarily with governments. In June ����, the winning architectural design for the Guggenheim Helsinki was announced. However, that project has encountered a number of roadblocks. The first came shortly after the museum presented its initial proposal to the City of Helsinki in ����. The skepticism with which this proposal was met led to the submission of a revised proposal in ����, which included extensive changes to the financial model and the museum operating structure (SRG Foundation ����). While some welcome the prospect of increased tourism that a Guggenheim might generate, others reject a model of Finnish taxpayer subsidization of an American initiative. The opposition has been so strong in some quarters that it spawned a parallel competition alongside the one launched by the city for the architectural contract. The “Next Helsinki” parallel competition invited proposals for alternative strategies for developing the cultural life of Helsinki. “Our competition—not really a competition at all, rather a call for ideas, an anti-competition—sought to ask first if a massive foreign museum was the highest and best use for public resources, especially in an aspirationally egalitarian social democracy like Finland.” � Incensed that Helsinki might “surrender such a fabulous site to �. For example, in early ����, this space showed Jackson Pollock’s mural, Energy Made Visible. The exhibition notes indicate that the painting is held by the University of Iowa Museum of Art and had recently undergone an ��-month cleaning and conservation process at the Getty in Los Angeles. The exhibition is curated by the Senior Consulting Curator from the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver. At the same time, the mural was commissioned by Peggy Guggenheim in ���� and has recently been on view as part of her collection. . 122