Art blows in the breeze in downtown Las Vegas

Tuesday, May 16, 2006 | 7:48 a.m.

"Gluttony" hangs over the sidewalk in front of Bingo Bail Bonds.

"Envy" is next to a real estate office. "Lust" ripples in front of a 24-hour pawn shop - a stone's throw from an adult club.

And "Greed"? That would be in front of a 24-hour jewelry shop.

The words are part of the "Nine Deadly Sins," a cluster of bold, 3-by-5-foot banners attached to light posts on Las Vegas Boulevard. They were installed as part of this year's Aerial Gallery, a downtown public art project that stretches from Charleston Boulevard to Mesquite Avenue.

Five themes categorize the 50 banners. Each cluster has been designed to interact with the neighborhoods in which they are displayed.

As cleverly placed as "Nine Deadly Sins" may be, the banners' locations were merely a result of last-minute shuffling by installers.

Still, as project leader Pasha Rafat says with a laugh: "I see they accidentally fell into the right place."

Rafat's Art in Public Places class at UNLV designed the work for the Aerial Gallery, which covers the sidewalks of attorney's offices, motels, dilapidated buildings, wedding chapels, government buildings and pawn shops.

Rather than calling them art, he characterizes the banners as subversive messages geared to the passing cars: "You don't even have a half of a second to look at these. But it opens your eyes a little and makes you look at the environment and pay attention."

The Aerial Gallery, Rafat says, shouldn't hit you over the head.

"It should enrich the area and give you a sense that something just happened," he says, "even if subliminal."

Other themed banners feature abstracts inspired by downtown's neon signs, black-and-white geometrics that reflect the architecture there and lively works that reference the Arts District's creativity.

Possibly the most captivating cluster has 16 banners, each a different close-up photograph of one eye of a male model's face. He has milky white skin and no eyelashes, and the photos show the eyeball looking in different directions and only a sliver of his face.

Placed near the George and Foley federal buildings, the eye appears to passers-by as if it is shifting and the banners evoke a sense of surveillance.

City cultural affairs specialist Richard Hooker calls the exhibit a reminder "of our civic and social behavior." The $14,000 project is sponsored by the Las Vegas Arts Commission. In its sixth year, the Aerial Gallery has exhibited works by more than 100 local artists.

Because of Las Vegas Boulevard's "visual noise" - signs and buildings competing for people's attention - cultural affairs manager Nancy Deaner says that thematically connecting the banners makes the Aerial Gallery "easier to spot."

Hooker says 30,000 cars pass through the gallery each day. And that, he says, is "a big arts audience."