Desert decor

Rural Goldwell Museum marks 20 years as a quirky, mysterious art park

By Andrew Kiraly

Why did a well-known Belgian artist choose in 1984 to create a sculptural interpretation of Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" just outside the dust-blasted Nevada ghost town of Rhyolite? Twenty years later, the motives of sculptor Albert Szukalski have grown famously cryptic, but his plaster-and-fiberglass sculpture still stands.

That's a good enough reason to celebrate. Indeed, Szukalski's piece--a ghostly Christ and his disciples meeting against the backdrop of the Amargosa Valley--is the anchor for one of the most unusual art phenoms in Nevada, a far-flung site where a group of international artists created pieces that could only be at home in this desert space five miles outside Beatty, an area dubbed the Goldwell Open Air Museum. There's Hugo Heyrman's "Lady Desert," a 25-foot-high cinderblock juggernaut of angular female power; there's "Icara," Dre Peters' soaring wood sculpture that reinterprets the mythical Icarus as a woman; "Chained to the Earth," Beatty resident David Spicer's piece exploring the relationship between man and woman; and several others.

The cluster of sculptures existed for years as perhaps little more than a sideshow of rural Nevada quirk until a group of serious-minded aficionados fell in love with them. Two fans in particular, Suzanne Hackett and husband Charles Morgan, took on a central role in maintaining the newly christened Goldwell Open Air Museum. After Szukalski died in 2000, Hackett formed a nonprofit organization to promote and protect the 7.8-acre site, and not necessarily as a static museum. The goals of the Goldwell Open Air Museum, she says, are to bring the site the international status it deserves and promote it as an economic boost to Nye County. Practical enough. But Hackett, secretary-treasurer of the nonprofit, still finds the reasons for her involvement something of a mystery.

"To some degree, the place chose me," Hackett says. "And I don't mean that in the trippy sense. After we discovered the place and Charles [Morgan] and I did an exhibit about [Szukalski] in 1996, we just sort of became increasingly involved." When Szukalski became ill in 2000 and couldn't visit the site anymore, responsibilities fell to Morgan and Hackett to make sure the place survived. Their involvement became so deep that they eventually decided to relocate to Las Vegas.

"We were doing this from L.A. and we really weren't able to do the work that needed to be done," she says. Since Hackett started the nonprofit, the board has pursued a dual mission of preserving the works that are there while also promoting the site as a place to create more art. "We made a promise to Albert to keep it going," Hackett says, "and now we're firing all the big guns at once." The latest coup for the sculpture site is Barrick Gold Corp. donating a barn. Hackett envisions the space housing exhibits, public events and artists' studios.

"It's another cultural draw for a place that doesn't have a lot of cultural draws," says board member Richard Stephens, a longtime Beatty resident who remembers when Szukalski originally unveiled "The Last Supper." Stephens was taking photos for the Death Valley Gateway Gazette. "I never met him until he came here and started making the sculpture, and he made Beatty a second home," Stephens says of Szukalski, whom he describes as a "happy-go-lucky kinda guy, but with a serious side to him." Far from any stereotypical images of cowtown shock at a European artist tweaking classic Christian imagery, the residents of Beatty weren't riled by the goings-on five miles out of town. "I didn't notice any great reaction," Stephens says. "People found it interesting." Like Hackett, Stephens envisions the place becoming a hub where artists live and create in residency programs.

But what's funny, board members say, is how the art park has taken up residence in them. "In that last couple years, when we've been doing an awful lot of work out there, with all the garbage and mouse stuff and ick, I'd stop in the middle of it all and look at Charles like, 'What are we doing here?'" Hackett says.

The answer is as straightforward as the noontime Mojave sun. "I just don't feel like I have a choice about it. It's like I'm supposed to be doing this work right now."

The Goldwell Open Air Museum 20th Anniversary Celebration is Oct. 15-17, with events at the Goldwell Open Air Museum and in Beatty. The museum is about five miles west of Beatty and 115 miles north of Las Vegas. Info: 870-9946 or goldwellmuseum.org.