LAS VEGAS (AP) --
Steve Martin? Fine art? Las Vegas?
As Martin might say, "Well, excuuuuuuuse me!"
The comedian, actor, author, banjo player, singer -- who'll add Academy Awards host to his resume on March 25 -- is going to show the public yet another facet when he displays his collection of modern and contemporary art April 7 at the Bellagio hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
Why a Las Vegas casino?
"The real reason,"Martin says in a catalog to be sold at his first-ever show, is "it sounds like fun."
Martin's show of 28 pieces will include works by Georges Seurat, Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso, David Hockney, Edward Hopper and others. Two works by David Park and Neil Jenney that Martin previously donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will also be shown.
"The juxtaposition of great art in Las Vegas seems almost like an oxymoron,"acknowledged Alan Feldman, spokesman for MGM Mirage resorts, which owns Bellagio.
The upscale resort and The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino are among those trying to change the city's neon-lit, velvet painting, home-of-boxing image by promoting museum-quality art galleries.
