The New York Times looks at Reno’s innovative Nadadada art fair:
The Town House Motor Lodge and El Cortez served as sites for NadaDada this year. The event attracted more than 3,000 visitors, more than double last year’s attendance.
At both venues, artists paid normal rates — about $150 a week — for rooms that were essentially blank canvases, canvases with wall-mounted Zenith television sets and orange shag carpet. Many artists did away with the rooms’ furniture completely, turning them into minimalist galleries.
El Cortez was built in 1931 to take advantage of the state’s liberalized divorce laws, back in the days before no-fault divorce when thousands wanting to untie the knot flocked to Nevada.
Vintage motels and lodging houses dot the landscape here, many holdovers from the divorce era as well as Reno’s now-dimmed status as a paradise for road-trip vacationers.
Art Canvases that Include Shag Carpet (New York Times)
