High-Tech Prints - Las Vegas Review - Journal THE ARTS Collages tell the unique Story of how Las Vegas grew into city by George McCabe April 7, 1992 Las Vegas artist Anthony Bondi sees parallels between what he does with pictures and what a rap star does with music. Like a rap act mixing old James Brown riffs into a new song, Bondi combines pictures he finds in public libraries on a color copier to create striking collages. He calls it "image sampling." "It's a little bit like using sampling in music." Bondi says the process usually works this way: He starts out with an idea and then begins combing the library for pictures to convey that image. Once he finds the right pictures, he says he copies them, cuts them out with scissors and arranges them the way he wants by enlaring or reducing the elements as needed on a digital color copier made by Cannon. The final product can then be enlarged on a separate digital copier to produce prints as large as 22 by 33 inches. "It's massive high-tech," Bondi says. "But, it's available to everybody." In fact, Bondi says he does most of his work at a local Kinko's Copies. The results are currently on display in the Dana Marie Lull Gallery inside the Spring Valley Library. The exhibit, called "Cyber Vegas," is open daily through April 16. As the name suggests, the 14 prints that make up the exhibit show a distinct local flavor - which is only natural considering Bondi's background. A native Las Vegan, the 38-year-old artist grew up watching the Las Vegas Strip take shape and hanging around his family's blueprinting business, where he still works today. Bondi's first collage, a 1990 piece he calls "An Exaggeration," combines a photograph of the Las Vegas Convention Center, circa 1960, with a massive mushroom cloud from an above-ground atomic blast. At the request of the American Peace Test, a group opposed to nuclear weapons testing, Bondi turned that first collage into a post card. That, in turn, prompted him to produce a similar print with a mushroom cloud rising up in the background of an old Desert Inn post card. Although both "bomb cards" were used to raise funds for the American Peace Test, Bondi says he didn't design them as anti-nuclear statements but rather as works of art that shed some light on the coloful history of Southern Nevada. To him, the image of an atomic cloud looming over old Las Vegas landmarks is one that "defines the town." "That's distinct for this city," he says. "We're the only ones that grew under it." Unlike other sunbelt cities that have blossomed since World War II, Bondi says Las Vegas "had the audacity to have its own identity." The city's brash style also inspired Bondi to create one of the other works being exhibited in the library. Called "Four Adjacent Las Vegas Resorts," the colorful collage combines The Mirage volcano, the front of the Oriental-themed Imperial Palace, a Roman-style sailing ship flying a Caesars Palace flag and the riverboat facade from the Holiday Casino. Bondi says the collage, like the contrasting styles that sit side-by-side on the Strip, represents "the slamming together" of incongruent images. In fact, the artist says, "The only city that I can think of from the past that ever was based on this kind of slamming together of images is Venice (Italy.)" Bondi brought that idea to life last year to win a poster contest sponsored by the Las Vegas Arts Commission. The poster, which he called "East Met West," super-imposes the neon sign from the Stardust Hotel over a bridge connecting two distinct types of buildings in Venice. While Las Vegas has never been confused with Italy when it comes to producing fine art, Bondi says the city has produced its share of talented artists. Besides his own work, he's doing his part to promote the arts in his hometown by investing his time and money with three other local artists in a new downtown art gallery called The Local Artist. The gallery, which opened in December, is near Charleston Boulevard and south Fourth Street, just behind the Vintage Madness clothing store. Bondi says the gallery gives local artists of all types - including painters, photographers, sculptors and others - a place to show their work. He says that's something that has always been in short supply in Las Vegas. "It's really difficult for someone in town to show work," he says. "And because there haven't been places to show work, it's tough for somone in town who wants to purchase work to find it." When Bondi's exhibit ends its run at the Spring Valley Library, he says his work can be found on display (and for sale) at the gallery.
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