A Beacon in the Desert: Oldenburg and van Bruggen’s Flashlight at UNLV

When viewed from an airplane, Las Vegas can appear as a luminous anomaly—“a small patch of light in a vast desert darkness,” as Claes Oldenburg once observed. “A flashlight seemed to be the proper symbol for that beacon of light in the desert.”¹ Installed in 1981 on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) campus, Flashlight by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen not only exemplifies the duo’s radical Pop sensibility but also helped place Las Vegas on the map of serious public art, serving as a cultural milestone for both the city and the university.

The origins of Flashlight trace back to 1973, when an advisory committee at UNLV recommended commissioning a large-scale public sculpture to enhance the performing arts plaza between the Judy Bayley Theatre and Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall. The committee initially approached Oldenburg, who declined. But when alternative negotiations failed, the invitation was extended again, and this time Oldenburg accepted with enthusiasm, proposing a monumental flashlight as the focal point.²

At first glance, a flashlight seemed a curious fit for Las Vegas, a city already drenched in artificial illumination—from neon signs to glowing marquees. But Oldenburg was after something deeper than imitation. He envisioned a solitary “beacon shining in the night,” a deliberate contrast to the exuberant chaos of the Strip.³

Design, Fabrication, and Symbolism

The original design called for the sculpture to stand upright, casting its beam skyward. Campus lore suggests the design changed due to McCarran Airport’s proximity, but in truth, it was Coosje van Bruggen who reimagined the work. She felt that an upward beam was too cliché—mechanical and predictable.⁴ By inverting the flashlight, she subdued its function and reversed its purpose, a hallmark of Oldenburg’s artistic strategy: to transform and defamiliarize the everyday.⁵

The final piece stands 38 feet tall, fabricated from black-painted steel flutes that subtly echo the ribs of a desert cactus. The vertical fluting radiates outward, suggesting both plant and machine, while the shape of the flashlight’s switch mimics the silhouette of Sunrise and Frenchman Mountains, east of campus.⁶ Oldenburg and van Bruggen intentionally muted the light source—allowing the form’s outline to emerge only in shadow at night, recalling the desert landscape’s ghostly presence at dusk.⁶

Flashlight was fabricated at Lippincott Industries in Connecticut and trucked cross-country on an 18-wheeler in March 1981. The journey itself drew attention, with curious onlookers and CB radio chatter speculating what the “giant object” might be.⁷

The total cost was approximately $130,000, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, a matching gift from the estate of philanthropist Robert Z. Hawkins, and contributions from Oldenburg himself, who sold original drawings to make up for production shortfalls.⁸ In the original NEA proposal, campus architect James McDaniels wrote that the sculpture would “amplify the vision” of the Performing Arts Center, standing “as a constant example for all students each day of the Performing Arts, sometimes man’s greatest achievement.”⁸

Connection to Oldenburg’s Larger Body of Work

Oldenburg and van Bruggen’s collaborative practice often revolved around monumentalizing mundane objects—clothespins, trowels, ice cream cones, spoons—elevating the banal to the level of civic spectacle.⁹ In this context, Flashlight was one of their earliest large-scale public collaborations and their first major outdoor commission. It set the tone for a body of work that turned visual puns into permanent fixtures of the American landscape.⁹

The sculpture’s inverted functionality and subtle wit are in keeping with Oldenburg’s philosophy of art as both playful and subversive. Philosopher Herbert Marcuse once said that if an Oldenburg sculpture were installed publicly, “it would indeed be subversive,” calling it “one of the most bloodless means to achieve radical change.”¹⁰ While Las Vegas embraced Flashlight with more confusion than revolution, its presence has undeniably altered perceptions of public art in the city.

Legacy in Las Vegas

Initial reactions to Flashlight were mixed. Some dismissed it as absurd or overly utilitarian, and its symbolic meanings—usher's tool, desert cactus, beacon of knowledge—were not always readily embraced. But over time, the sculpture became a beloved part of the UNLV landscape and a defining feature of campus identity. It is a popular meeting point (“Meet me at the Flashlight”) and serves as an enduring metaphor for the university’s role as a source of illumination and intellectual light in the community.⁴

More broadly, Flashlight signaled a cultural shift in Las Vegas. At a time when the city was often dismissed as culturally shallow, the presence of an internationally acclaimed public artwork on a university campus challenged assumptions. It marked the beginning of a longer arc in which Las Vegas would become home to significant art installations by Jenny Holzer, Maya Lin, Ugo Rondinone, and others.

Despite skepticism from some locals and even certain scholars—who feared the work might “become a lie about the existence of a visual-arts culture in Las Vegas”¹⁰—Flashlight has instead become a touchstone for the city’s evolving cultural maturity.

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s Flashlight is far more than a whimsical Pop object—it is a layered, site-responsive artwork that reflects the paradoxes of Las Vegas itself. Inverting light, function, and expectation, the sculpture asserts the possibility of intellectual and cultural presence in a city better known for glitz and impermanence. Four decades later, Flashlight continues to quietly illuminate its surroundings—metaphorically and literally—proving that even a humble object can become a powerful cultural beacon.

Footnotes

1. UNLV News Center, “A Beacon Shining in the Night,” March 1, 2022. https://www.unlv.edu/news/article/beacon-shining-night
2. UNLV News Center, “The Back Story: The Flashlight,” March 11, 2013. https://www.unlv.edu/news/article/back-story-flashlight
3. Los Angeles Times, quoted in UNLV News, 2022.
4. Artforum, “Claes Oldenburg,” exhibition listing and summary, 2022. https://www.artforum.com/events/claes-oldenburg-2-228253
5. Haskell, Barbara. Claes Oldenburg: Object into Monument. Walker Art Center, 1971.
6. Coosje van Bruggen, Claes Oldenburg: Large-Scale Projects, 1977–1980, Rizzoli, 1981.
7. UNLV News, 2013.
8. NEA Grant Application and Campus Planning Documents (quoted in UNLV archives).
9. Fineberg, Jonathan. Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being. Prentice Hall, 2010.
10. Herbert Marcuse interview, 1968; quoted in UNLV archival commentary (1980s).