LAS VEGAS, NV/ NEW YORK, NY.- Thomas Krens , Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum , and Robert G. Goldstein, President of the Venetian and The Palazzo, today announced that the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum will conclude its seven-year tenure at The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas on May 11, 2008. The museum, which is currently presenting Modern Masters from the Guggenheim Collection, will be open free of charge in celebration of the seven-year partnership from April 11 to May 11, 2008. During this period, the public will be able to enjoy free admission to the gallery.

Thomas Krens , Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, said that the final exhibition at the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum is significant for several reasons. “We are proud of the remarkable exhibition program that has been presented in Las Vegas – bringing works by leading artists from the last six centuries to the museum – from van Eyck, Titian, and Velázquez, to van Gogh, Picasso, and Pollock. Our seven-year exhibition history is a perfect example of the value of the far-reaching partnership between the Guggenheim and The State Hermitage Museum that was launched in St. Petersburg in 2000. While the partnership also includes collection sharing and project development initiatives, the alliance is collaboration, in the truest sense of the word, between two world-class museums who have brought exceptional exhibitions and education programs to the citizens of Las Vegas and the millions of international tourists who visit the city every year. We are particularly proud to have served over 20,000 K-12 students through the school tour program and nearly 27,000 total participants through educational lectures, teacher workshops, and family programs during our tenure in Las Vegas .”

“Our intention,” said Dr. Piotrovsky, Director of The State Hermitage Museum, “has been to use our permanent collections to create a unique cultural experience. The exhibitions that we have organized for Las Vegas have also been shown at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, and at the Guggenheim museums in New York, Bilbao, and Berlin . And as we planned, we brought these magnificent collections to new international audiences, which, after all, is part of our mission. We are proud that we also achieved our other goals by creating a new platform for scholarship and established a new model for cultural collaboration, while fulfilling our original mission.”

Mr. Krens added that the relationship with the Venetian has been extremely positive throughout the seven-year term of the association. “The Venetian built two exhibition spaces—both designed by Rem Koolhaas—that were extraordinary in everyway. Sheldon Adelson and Rob Goldstein made a pioneering effort to bring art and culture to Las Vegas audiences and from our perspective, the partnership was perfect and the objective worthy, executed with the highest standards of excellence. We had planned from the beginning that this partnership would be set for a specific term, and that has been fulfilled. We are now looking forward to continuing the relationship with a number of projects that are under discussion.”