Video art has found its day in the sun.
The Walls Gallery is featuring an outdoor-only exhibition that began Monday and will continue through April 25.
"I think the intent of the whole show is to redefine that exhibition space," said Michael Cook, an artist in the show and an art professor at UNM. "It takes what is usually internal and puts it on the street."
Mary Tsiongas, a UNM professor, conceived the show "Through the Night Softly." It takes art into the streets by rear-projection through the windows of the Walls Gallery that face Central Avenue. The sidewalks act as the silver screen for the artists' work, which can be seen after sundown every night.
"One great thing about this show is that people outside are invited to look in," said Naomi Shersty, one of the featured artists. "Hopefully it will invite a different audience, so we're not preaching to the choir."
The video used in the exhibition ranges from digital video to stop-motion animation to poetry and performance.
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Cook's piece, "Survey," serves as a commentary on the Patriot Act.
"It's about how our society is under much more surveillance after 9-11," Cook said. The video is shot with a digital camera from the top of the John Hancock Building in Chicago.
Other artists in the show are Chad Person, with a site-specific video on city and landscape, and Erika Adams' "Tensile," which works with water and glass surfaces and insects zipping back and forth across a lake. Matthew Rana's piece, "srdi bahar, grmi bahar," or winter spring, summer spring, uses the projection as a performance space, and Joel Waldrep's "This Way That Way" uses the art of stop-motion animation to describe finding a path in life.
Shersty's piece "petit Çchec," or little failure, examines the way culture defines a woman's sexuality.
"The title's French because of my model and that mystique around the whole French sex-kitten image," Shersty said. "The French word for attempt really means to try or to tempt, so it's about attempting to be something you're not."
The piece itself works around humor and repetition to convey this message.
"I want people to look at the way women are portrayed," Shersty said. "When you watch this woman again and again, it becomes almost ridiculous. Her burlesque sex appeal gets skewed, and she's almost in drag herself."
Shersty shot the video two years ago, and investigated the way people have constructed desire and how they fashion themselves to become desirable.
"Sexuality becomes plastic, impossible, a one-liner," Shersty said.
Each artist participating in "Through the Night Softly" adds something unique to this eclectic display of street art.
"I hope it gives people an interest in what local artists are doing," Shersty said. "The show gives art a greater accessibility, taking fine art off its pedestal."
What: "Through the Night Softly"
When: Now through April 25, sunset
Where: The Walls 510 Central Ave.
Price: Free
