Artist and writer Ed Fuentes gets ink in Las Vegas

L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Weekly

Ed Fuentes, the DTLA muralist, designer and blogger who advises LA Observed followers how to prepare for the Last Remaining Seats screenings, has been working and going to school in Las Vegas for a little while now. Backed by a grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation, he has been chronicling the street art scene in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Weekly took note in a new interview, with portrait by L.E. Baskow. Interesting what Fuentes says about what is missing in Las Vegas.

Sample:

On what makes effective street art: “Simplicity. How quick can you read the message—it’s just like a good logo, especially if you’re on a commute and get the repeated viewings. You can have details as a lot of backstory, but the overall composition has to have a connection. The Life Is Beautiful street art is a simple read, because you can look at it as a whole. If you walk up to it in person then you see the details, and it becomes a different kind of piece. Graffiti is not a simple read. It has so much detail and so much chaos, and it’s supposed to have chaos. It’s supposed to throw your sense off a little bit. It’s supposed to be an invasion.”

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What Las Vegas is missing in terms of street art: “Ethnic murals. You have a large Hawaiian population here; there should be a mural about them somewhere. You have North Las Vegas with a big Latino community. There’s probably a great place for a mural in Chinatown. You could have a great Mormon mural. You could have a mural about mining. You could come out with a really beautiful curated mural program. I would even be happy with a cool Rat Pack mural that’s not on the side of a souvenir stand. How could they not have done a Howard Hughes mural in Summerlin? Who’s the first librarian in town? That’s worth a mural.”