In 2011, the Nevada Museum of Art and the Art Production Fund in New York City began working with artist Ugo Rondinone to co-produce and present his project for a large-scale sculptural installation in the desert near Las Vegas.
Completed in 2016, Rondinone’s towers of multicolored rocks, titled Seven Magic Mountains, quickly became widely known and avidly visited.
They also inspired a sharp yet playful critique from the Las Vegas-based artist Justin Favela. In 2019, with his collaborator Ramiro Gomez, Favela painted recycled automobile tires in bright colors and arranged them in seven stacks in an empty lot on the east side of Las Vegas, with the title Seven Magic Tires.
PREVIOUS STORY: Tire version of Seven Magic Mountains pops up in east Las Vegas
Now, as a component of its exhibition Land Art: Expanding the Atlas, the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno has invited Favela to re-create Seven Magic Tires on its Sky Plaza. On view now, the installation is part of the Museum’s ambitious Art + Environment Season, Land Art: Past, Present, Futures.
The Museum’s 2021 Art + Environment Season Land Art: Past, Present, Futures comprises five simultaneous gallery exhibitions, a subscription series of virtual discussions and talks by 23 distinguished speakers (September 23 through November 19), a live outdoor “transformance” in Las Vegas by Rose B. Simpson, and the publication by the Museum and Monacelli of a 256-page, lavishly illustrated book, Gianfranco Gorgoni: Land Art Photographs.
A native of Las Vegas who graduated in 2010 from UNLV, Justin Favela has exhibited his work across the United States and internationally. His installations have been commissioned by museums including the Denver Art Museum and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. His most recent major project, Puente Nuevo, was on view at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in 2019-20. He is the recipient of the 2018 Alan Turing LGTBIQ Award for International Artist. Favela hosts two culture-oriented podcasts, “Latinos Who Lunch” and “The Art People Podcast.”
