Depending on the work and the individual who’s observing it, Karen Kilimnik’s art can be described as glamorous, kitschy, a bit unsettling, whimsical, romantic, spooky, or something else altogether, which is part of what makes her new exhibition at Lomex Las Vegas so compelling.

The brainchild of New York gallerist, Alex Shulan—described by Artforum as “the wunderkind art dealer behind the taste-making gallery Lomex” and “one of the art world’s most promising dealers, a tastemaker who isn’t afraid to push the boundaries of what kind of art should be shown in a commercial gallery—and which the market undoubtedly follows,”—and Las Vegas-based “art advisor to the stars,” Ralph DeLuca (whose clients include Leonardo DiCaprio, Sylvester Stallone, Martin Scorsese, and MGM Resorts International), Lomex Las Vegas opened this past New Year’s Eve with its first exhibition, The Dream, which ran through late-March and featured a dynamic pairing of large-format photographs of rockets by Heji Shin with golden paintings by Mathieu Malouf.

But it isn’t that a pair of respected art world luminaries decided to open a gallery in Las Vegas that makes Lomex Las Vegas so special (though it certainly doesn’t hurt).  It's that rather than opening yet another de rigueur “whitebox” gallery, DeLuca and Shulan opted to take things in a different direction.

They found a mid-century modern home in the historic Paradise Palms neighborhood that they proceeded to convert into an experiential gallery, bringing in Las Vegas’ “Queen of Kitsch,” Carlotta Champagne, to transform the interiors into an immersive, Atomic Age-inspired work of art, inside of which Shulan would hang the exhibitions.

The effect is at once clever, campy, and cool, not to mention oh-so-Las Vegas-y (or, at least the vision of Casino-era Las Vegas that permeates the collective psyche).  At various times, walking through the house—featuring a fuchsia heart-shaped bed that might well have come from the honeymoon suite at a Niagara Falls motor lodge circa 1983, white plaster statuary around the pool, walls of rock and mirror in the entry, and a fountain of rock and tile in the living room—I’ve heard utterances ranging from an amused “No way!” and a pleasantly taken aback “Whaaaat?!?!” to a bemused  “I’m not sure if I get it, but it’s really cool.”  (P.S.  If your takeaway from anything, especially art, is that it’s “really cool,” then as far as I’m concerned, you got it.)

Now, with its second exhibition, Lomex Las Vegas has been hung with a plethora of works by Karen Kilimnik.  And while Ms. Champagne’s décor remains mostly unaltered, Kilimnik’s romantic, surreal, at times hallucinatory works (many of which recall the way disparate images can simultaneously float in our mind's eye) are a complete about-face from the bigger, more bombastic pieces by Shin and Malouf.  

All of which is to say that by avoiding the stagnation of sameness, Lomex Las Vegas intends to keep things fresh while maintaining its retro-cool vibes.

Karen Kilimnik
Lomex Las Vegas (by appointment only)
June - August, 2026 | Paradise Palms
Click HERE for details and appointments

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