MGM Resorts International : Art & Culture Presents Artwork From Bellagio’s Artist Studio Resident Parker Ito at Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland

LAS VEGAS (May 23, 2019)-MGM Resorts Art & Culture, a global Associate Partner of Art Basel, will proudly debut a new series of work by Artist Studio resident Parker Ito in the MGM Resorts Lounge at the 2019 edition (June 12 - 16) of Art Basel in Basel.

Ito is currently producing five major paintings inspired by his Japanese heritage and experiences in Las Vegas, three of which will travel to Switzerland. These innovative works, paired with Ito's unconventional studio practice utilizing photography, painting and printmaking techniques, encourages viewers to reconsider familiar images of the Las Vegas cityscape.

About the Artist Studio Commission

As a consummate user and producer of media, Ito creates paintings, sculptures and video works by drawing upon his extensive experience online as both artist and audience. Known for generating networked bodies of work, Ito spreads ideas and imagery in a way that reflects the relentless impressions that might be generated in one's experience. During his residency at Bellagio, Ito is reimagining traditional still lifes placed in conversation with the cityscape of Las Vegas as seen from multiple MGM Resorts properties, including Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, The Signature at MGM Grand and Circus Circus. Exhibiting the qualities of objects found in Dutch vanitas still life painting, Ito's selection of foregrounded objects functions as metaphorical imagery both for the human experience and his own. The items presented flourish and fade, much like the decomposing flowers and other organic objects regularly featured in historical still lifes. The surrounding panorama of Las Vegas serves as a backdrop for his compositions, creating personal moments contrasted against the vast, twinkling expanse of the city.

Having grown up as a fourth-generation Japanese American, or Yonsei, in northern Orange County, Calif., Ito's works also subtly nod to Japanese culture and Ito's diverse personal experiences. The paintings address issues surrounding assimilation and cultural rediscovery by juxtaposing traditional Japanese motifs with Western American landscapes.

For the series, Ito photographs arrangements of objects in a living room-like setting with the use of an outdated digital camera. From these images, he uses a transfer method he established to transform these image-based works into large-scale paintings within the studio, resembling an updated version of the solvent transfers pioneered by Robert Rauschenberg in the 1950s and 1960s.

Parcours Sector of Art Basel

MGM Resorts Art & Culture continues its support of the Parcours sector of Art Basel in 2019, which will present 20 site-specific artworks around Basel's greater Münsterplatz area. Now in its tenth edition, Parcours is again located in the heart of Basel's historical city center where artists engage with an abundance of historically rich scenic sites. Curated for the fourth year by Samuel Leuenberger, founder of SALTS in Birsfelden, Switzerland, this year's Parcours reflects on the reconsideration of inanimate objecthood and the interaction between people and sculpture within an urban context.

# # #

About Parker Ito

PARKER ITO is a fourth generation Japanese American, or Yonsei ( ?? ), living and working in Los Angeles. Ito's work takes the form of installation, painting, sculpture, video, drawing, websites and printmaking. Materially inventive and heavy with processes that might corrupt or enhance, he produces impressions of the things around him. Ito assembles cultural markers, ornaments, vistas and consumables. He pushes these arrangements through technologies - including screens, cameras, printers, hand-painting - and the atmospheric effects of these processes behave like the binding substance of the artist's consciousness. Bracing all of the artist's output is the structure of the network. Ito gives focus to the specific conditions of making and exhibiting art, as well as the extended network that his practice traces. parkerito.com

Forthcoming solo exhibitions by the artist include at Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing (2019); and Château Shatto, Los Angeles (2020). Recent solo exhibitions by the artist include CONDO, hosted by Sadie Coles HQ, London; P, Primary, Nottingham; P, Team Gallery, New York; #17, Beijing Art Now Gallery, Beijing; A Lil Taste of Cheeto in the Night, Château Shatto, Los Angeles; Maid in Heaven / En Plein Air in Hell, White Cube, London. Previous group exhibitions include Welcome Too Late, Kunsthal Charlottenburg, Copenhagen; LA Dreams, CFHILL, Stockholm; Bodacious, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Times Museum, Guangzhou; Co-Workers, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; TERRAFORMERS, Bonington Gallery, Nottingham; The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku; Wet Paint, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; and Everythings, Andrea Rosen, New York. In 2012, Ito's work was exhibited at the NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC) in Tokyo.

Ito's work is in major public and private collections around the world, including the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Getty Research Institute; Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing; Yuz Museum, Shanghai; Sandretto Foundation, Turin; Aishti Foundation, Beirut; and PCP Collection, Taipei.

Ito has published books with Three Star Books, One Star Press, Landfill Editions, RRose Editions and Diane Incorporated. His work has appeared in Artforum, Frieze, Art Review, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Purple Magazine, The Quietus, Mousse Magazine and Interview Magazine.

About MGM Resorts Art & Culture

MGM Resorts Art & Culture focuses on commissioning, collecting, supporting and presenting contemporary art in and around MGM Resorts' destinations globally. Currently the MGM Resorts Art Collection includes more than 800 pieces by over 200 artists.

MGM Resorts Art & Culture was established in 2016 to encompass all of MGM Resorts' collections and varied art-related initiatives and partnerships to develop a comprehensive, multifaceted arts program. Reflecting the company's core values of inclusivity and diversity, MGM Resorts Art & Culture aims to create special, accessible experiences for all audiences. Each project thoughtfully considers the artist, the environment, and the overall experience, recognizing the power of art to evoke emotion, engage the senses, and spark conversation. Art is prevalent throughout MGM Resorts distinctive world-class brands including Bellagio, ARIA, Vdara, MGM Grand, and Delano Las Vegas; as well as MGM National Harbor outside of Washington, D.C., MGM Springfield in Massachusetts, and internationally at MGM MACAU and MGM COTAI.

Examples include works by Alice Aycock (National Harbor, Maryland), Jenny Holzer (ARIA, Las Vegas), Antony Gormley (ARIA, Las Vegas), Maya Lin (ARIA, Las Vegas), Robert Rauschenberg (Bellagio, Las Vegas), Nancy Rubins (Vdara, Las Vegas), James Turrell (ARIA, Las Vegas), among many others.

For more information, please visit the MGM Resorts Art & Culture website and YouTube page.

For additional media materials, images and videos, visit the MGM Resorts newsroom: newsroom.mgmresorts.com.

About Art Basel Partnership

MGM Resorts' partnership with Art Basel began in December 2016 when MGM Resorts became the Public sector's Partner in Art Basel in Miami Beach. The relationship grew with MGM Resorts' support of Kingsley Ng's Twenty-Five Minutes Older Tram project during the Hong Kong show in March 2017, and expanded into an Associate Partnership at Art Basel in Basel in June 2017, where MGM Resorts Art & Culture supported Than Hussein Clark's Parcours performance Yes, Yes, All the News that's Fit to Print. At Art Basel in Miami Beach in 2017, MGM Resorts Art & Culture continued this role and was partner of the show's Public sector for the second year. In 2018, MGM Resorts initiated its inaugural support of the Encounters sector at Art Basel in Hong Kong, and supported the entire Parcours sector at that year's edition of Art Basel in Basel. At Art Basel in Miami Beach 2018, MGM Resorts Art & Culture supported Abraham Cruzvillegas' Autorreconstrucción: To Insist, to insist, to insist… that took place throughout the fair in the ballroom of the newly renovated Miami Beach Convention Center. MGM Resorts continued its partnership with Art Basel in 2019 with support of the Encounters sector for its second year at Art Basel in Hong Kong.

About Art Basel

Founded in 1970 by gallerists from Basel, Art Basel today stages the world's premier art shows for Modern and contemporary art, sited in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong. Defined by its host city and region, each show is unique, which is reflected in its participating galleries, artworks presented, and the content of parallel programming produced in collaboration with local institutions for each edition. Art Basel's engagement has expanded beyond art fairs through a number of new initiatives such as Art Basel Cities, working with partner cities on bespoke cultural programs. For further information, please visit artbasel.com.

About MGM Resorts International

MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) is an S&P 500® global entertainment company with national and international locations featuring best-in-class hotels and casinos, state-of-the-art meetings and conference spaces, incredible live and theatrical entertainment experiences, and an extensive array of restaurant, nightlife and retail offerings. MGM Resorts creates immersive, iconic experiences through its suite of Las Vegas-inspired brands. The MGM Resorts portfolio encompasses 29 unique hotel and destination gaming offerings including some of the most recognizable resort brands in the industry. Expanding throughout the U.S. and around the world, the company acquired the operations of Empire City Casino in New York in 2019, and in 2018, opened MGM Springfield in Massachusetts, MGM COTAI in Macau, and the first Bellagio-branded hotel in Shanghai. The over 82,000 global employees of MGM Resorts are proud of their company for being recognized as one of FORTUNE® Magazine's World's Most Admired Companies®. For more information visit us at www.mgmresorts.com.

# # #

Media Contact:

Dara Cohen

MGM Resorts International

[phone]

[e-mail]