Source: Atlas Obscura
Sprouting from the desert brush, dinosaurs nudge post-modern pyramids. The Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building topple.
A cowboy waves and the Statue of Liberty salutes her torch. Neon signs overshadow world-famous works of art, and kitschy stars circle the scene like party decorations hung from the ceiling.No single component of the scene is artificial, but none of them are quite real, either. The image above, titled Vacation Delirium, was assembled using photographs of sculptures and landmarks in Las Vegas, many of which themselves are recreations of natural phenomena, prehistoric beasts, and iconic monuments. Together, the elements combine to create, as the collage artist Francesca Berrini and the photographer Lindsey Rickert describe it, “an impossible postcard.”
Assembled by Berrini using original photography shot by Rickert and found ephemera, Vacation Delirium depicts the beginning of their journey on “The Fellowship of Highway 95.” Developed with TravelNevada, the state’s tourism board, the Fellowship offered two artists the chance to collaborate and create a body of work on a week-long trip up what’s known as Nevada’s “Free-Range Art Highway.” Over 400 teams applied, and Berrini and Rickert were chosen as our winners.
Beginning in Las Vegas, Highway 95 runs 400 miles north to Fernley. The highway’s nickname refers to the open-air artworks that dot its course, but “free-range” could just as easily refer to Nevada’s stance on its cultural treasures.
Las Vegas was the perfect muse for the first day of Berrini and Rickert’s journey. They describe their “impossible postcards” as a compression of time and memory that combine “photography, collage, and illustration into phantasmal dreamscapes.” The sentiment, if not its application, could just as easily apply to Las Vegas’ development since the 1940s.
When it opened in 1941, El Rancho Vegas was the first casino on what is now known as the Las Vegas Strip. Western-themed, it reflected America’s infatuation with gun-slinging paperbacks and movies. Plus, cowboys gambled. The casino cast the pastime as rugged, romantic.
El Rancho Vegas…
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