Several media agencies including the Art Newspaper has reported that the Las Vegas exhibition hall at the world famous Venetian Hotel and Casino will close as soon as the current show “Modern Masters from the Guggenheim Collection” closes in early May. The imminent closure will conclude a seven-year contract signed in 2001 by The Venetian Hotel and the other parts involved, the exhibition room is operated by the Guggenheim Foundation in New York and the StateHermitageMuseum in St Petersburg, Russia.

The Venetian Hotel Las Vegas representatives said the hotel management has plans to use the space currently used by the exhibition room for a Louis Vuitton handbag and accessories store. Over 1 million people have visited the exhibition room since it was opened in 2001; however, the daily attendance has fallen to 500 people a day in the recent months. The exhibition space hosted 10 exhibitions and was the first major cooperative project between Russian and American museums.

“We are moving the Las Vegas project to other places around the world, for instance we're opening a space in Lithuania,’” said Mikhail Piotrovsky, the Hermitage director.

British architect, Zaha Hadid, has been chosen to develop a new museum in Vilnius, Lithuania that will provide an exhibition space for the new Guggenheim and the Hermitage project. The Guggenheim-Hermitage joint venture begun in 2000 as a way to pool the resources of the Hermitage's extensive collection of classic art with the Guggenheim's modern and contemporary art collection.