Las Vegas is now home to a permanent work by elusive street artist Banksy and unlike his Girl With Balloon/Love is in the Bin painting, sold at Sotheby’s Auction for $1.4 million last year, this one won’t shockingly shred itself (as far as we know).
Smiley Coppers Panel I debuted inside new retro restaurant Greene St. Kitchen at Palms Casino Resort earlier this week as part of the venue’s extensive street art collection. The spray painted piece depicts two heavily armed police officers with neon yellow smiley faces.
Operated by Andy Masi’s Clique Hospitality, Greene St. Kitchen provides an immersive art program curated by Palms’ Creative Director Tal Cooperman. Large-scale works, expansive murals and nods to the artistic graffiti community are seen throughout the space, designed by Rockwell Group Las Vegas.
Guests enter the retro-chic, video game-inspired venue with a 1980’s 8-bit video-inspired tiled floor through a hidden vending machine door before passing through a tunnel painted by New York City-based graffiti artist CES (Robert Provenzano) with layers of tags representing graffiti legends such as SEEN, P-NUT, BLAZE and STAY HIGH 149, called Process of Predomination.
Other commissioned pieces include Endless Night by Cleon Peterson, a three-dimensional mural Scratching the Surface project by VHILS, Morse by Jordan Pose and LV HAnds AKA Logan 5 by Slick. The restaurant also honors acclaimed street art photographer, Martha Cooper, with a gallery of some of her most noteworthy photographs that document the NYC graffiti and hip-hop scenes of the ’70s and ’80s.
Art has been an important aspect of Palms’ $690 million property-wide renovations. When Palms unveiled its first phase of renovations last year, Vice President and General Manager Jon Gray told Haute Living: “Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, our owners, are avid collectors of fine art and have been for many years. When they bought the Palms in 2016 … the curation of the collection began. It includes pieces from their personal collections, purchased pieces and commissioned pieces.”
The property’s extensive art collection touches every corner of the property and includes notable and unique contemporary, blue-chip and street art by globally renowned artists such as Damien Hirst, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Dustin Yellin, Takashi Murakami and KAWS (Brian Donnelly).
“We really wanted to interweave art into every aspect of the guest experience,” explained Gray.
