Art: High art

By Erika Yowell

Situated on a mile-long stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard between Charleston Boulevard and Mesquite Avenue, the 2004 installation of the Aerial Gallery is perhaps the most successful one to date. Organized by the city's Department of Leisure Services, the gallery brings fine art into a somewhat distressed public setting by means of 50 seven-foot-high, digitized vinyl banners strung from defunct light poles, and one building (at Las Vegas Boulevard and Carson Avenue) wrapped in a photomural.

The work of 10 artists is featured in this year's Aerial Gallery, with four to seven light poles devoted to each individual. This arrangement means that there's a greater sense of continuity and intelligibility to the exhibit than in past years, when each light pole featured the work of a different artist. Such variety was, frankly, tough to process as viewed from the confines of a vehicle cruising along the stretch of road at 35 mph. By limiting participation in the project to a smaller group and by affording each participant multiple, consecutively hung banners, the city demonstrates some commitment to curatorial judgment, and gives viewers a chance to get a better feel for each artist's oeuvre.

Besides being a member of the City's artist registry, a prerequisite for participation in the Aerial Gallery is producing work that lends itself graphically to the large-scale, as-seen-from-worm's-eye-view format. Just north of Charleston, Marty Walsh's oil paintings of familiar kitchen implements (e.g., milkshake mixer, can opener, skillet) accomplish this objective brilliantly. Dramatically lighted and reminiscent of the mid-century Modern aesthetic still preserved in some of that area's architecture, Walsh's portraits of not-so-cutting-edge gadgets function as nostalgic still lifes of a sort.

Dottie Burton's watercolor portraits of the homeless might qualify as the most site-specific (and politically charged) series in the gallery. Executed in vaguely Lucian Freud-style expressionism and proportions, Burton's works invite closer inspection. The compulsion to park the car and take in the Aerial Gallery on foot is one that may overtake you.

Other series featured in the gallery include Haya Gil-Lubin's photograms of plant life, Suzanne Hackett's depictions of kitschy roadside architecture and signage, Jerry Misko's neon sign abstractions and Jack Hallberg's colorful paintings of Mod-looking amoebic forms. Stewart Freshwater, Brian Swanson, Dayo Adelaja, Jorge Catoni and the interesting collective called 5ive Finger Miscount round out the exhibition.