‘Avant-Yard’ work for art

Scott Dickensheets

Friday, July 19, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

At least they're not bugging the artists.

The typical arts fund-raiser finds an organization inveigling its favorite artists to donate work, which is then auctioned off to benefit the organization.

Not NICA, not this time. "How many times can you go back to the well?" asks Mark Masuoka, executive director of the Nevada Institute for Contemporary Art, looking most un-director-like in shorts and T-shirt amid a gallery full of odds and ends destined for NICA's "Avant-Yard Sale."

For the welter of items to be sold off today and Saturday, NICA turned to individual members and local businesses.

They responded with heaping gallery of furniture, artwork, picture frames, vases, decorator items. "Everyone has a Tuff-Shed or a public storage space full of stuff," Masuoka says.

"Circus Circus donated things they didn't use in Monte Carlo," adds Development Director Arlene Blut.

Atlandia Design, the interior design firm closely associated with Mirage Resorts, also donated heavily.

How many items all together? "Are you kidding?" Blut said, eyebrows shooting skyward. "Thousands!"

Nothing tacky, though. No half-broken toasters or orphaned golf clubs, no toys or clothes. This is a yard sale with standards.

"We try to keep it high-end, with good used stuff," Blut says.

"If it ended up being a real schleppy kind of thing," Masuoka says, "I don't think we'd have done it."

Still, a gallery cluttered with items someone didn't like enough to keep -- that's a little out of character for the visually and intellectually austere world of contemporary art.

"It's a tough decision whether or not to do something like this, especially in your own space," Masuoka acknowledges. But these are not flush times for the arts generally, and summer is even worse. No money-making opportunity can be rejected out of hand.

"You just have to be creative," he said, "do it with a twist, but still have it be in good taste."

This will be NICA's second garage sale. It was born spontaneously last summer during a bit of down time between exhibits. "We had all this stuff just sitting around," Blut recalled. "So we just sorta winged it. And it was a tremendous success." NICA made $8,000.

But as much as money (well, almost), NICA hopes to rake in people: yard-salers who might not otherwise have ventured into a contemporary art gallery. Once inside, perhaps they'll see there's nothing to be frightened of.

"Then people will know we're here and they're not intimidated," Blut said.