Las Vegas Art Museum Victim of Economic Recession

When one thinks of Las Vegas, usually the last thing that comes to mind is art.  But Sin City does have museums...or...let's rephrase that...DID HAVE MUSEUMS.

The Las Vegas Art Museum, Southern Nevada's first fine-arts museum and one of the city's cultural mainstays since 1950, has become the latest victim of a disastrous economy, according to Ken Miller of the Las Vegas Weekly.

The Museum will close the end of this week.

"The board and the museum staff have been exhausting themselves for the past year, doing everything they know how to do in terms of fundraising, but the money is just not there," Museum spokesperson, Anne Kellogg told the Las Vegas Weekly, adding 97 seven percent of the museum's budget is funded by the private sector, and that no money comes in from the government.

"We're beholden to the generosity of the public, and in Las Vegas, all of the philanthropic dollars come primarily from real estate and gaming, and those two sectors have been hard hit in Las Vegas," Kellogg said.

The Las Vegas Art Museum has been dedicated to presenting works by emerging and internationally recognized contemporary artists.

Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com