O.C. ART REVIEW : The Duke Looks a Little Out of Place, Pilgrim . . .

Well, it could have been worse. Our 9-foot-tall bronze pal John Wayne--the chunky gunslinger in spurs and rolled-up pants at John Wayne Airport--could have been spiffed up with a bright red bandanna or ruby lips, or pink cheeks.

But the “colorized” version of the sculpture that greets visitors inside the glass entryway of the new Thomas F. Riley Terminal just got a more . . . well, a more leathery look. His jacket is now a caramel color, his shirt is a darker brown, his Stetson is gray and his yellow-brown pants now look as though they’ve bit the Western dust from time to time.

Why did artist Robert Summers garnish his 1982 handiwork with a new patina? Because he felt that once the piece was moved indoors and subjected to artificial lighting, its old oxidized glow wasn’t quite the thing.

But the real question is: Why did the powers that be have to give our bronze friend such a prominent place in the new terminal? Yeah, I know, I know, the airport was named after the actor--who lived in Newport Beach--because he was the embodiment of “a true American patriot” and “traditional American values,” according to the 1979 resolution of the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

To be sure, the many recent reports of artistic censorship in these parts--including charges by artist Jim Morphesis that his “Winged Figure” painting was not used for the official airport poster because it included male nudity--suggest that the county’s attitudes remain ultraconservative. So what else could we expect but a plodding, representational sculpture of a “patriot” in a new structure that is the county’s proud commercial equivalent of the Performing Arts Center?

It was probably too much to hope that county superpatriots could be appeased by looking at Wayne’s bronze embodiment in the parking lot somewhere, and allow the airport to acquire a work of artistic distinction for the lobby.

But then again, what with the budget problems that have plagued the building project--resulting in such disappointments as the lack of interior finish on the metal panels in the barrel-vaulted ceiling--it’s all too easy to imagine the sort of dismal, cut-rate piece that might have taken the Duke’s place.

There is art elsewhere in the airport, in the inaugural exhibition, “Urban Landscapes and Transportation Images,” organized by Community Arts Inc. of San Francisco. The Airport Arts Commission selected this nonprofit organization primarily because of its experience in organizing exhibitions at San Francisco Airport.

It’s one thing to site a monumental permanent sculpture to play off the architectural details of a public space, and quite another to pull together a temporary airport art show. While the Thomas F. Riley Terminal really missed the boat in not commissioning a commanding and significant work of art for its entryway, it can’t be expected to mount the same kind of temporary art exhibit under its roof that you would expect to see at a distinguished museum.

When 10,000 people a day and their luggage are jostling past the works on view, safety and security issues become paramount. People tend to be either frantically rushing about or aimlessly killing time. Many are nervous about flying, or preoccupied about the places they’ve just left or the places they will be in a matter of hours.

In reality, works of art are obliged to serve the “airport experience” in a way not dissimilar to a paperback book, a cigarette or a martini--to divert, give pleasure and anesthetize against the numbing rigors of getting from one place to another with too much luggage, too little time and the constant companionship of a horde of other people you normally would never wish to meet.

The current exhibit--on view through Nov. 28--consists of paintings, prints and works of sculpture, displayed along the north and south concourses on the departure level (Level 2) of the terminal, as well as in the second story of the lobby. (To get to these areas, you have to pass through the airport security system.)

According to the Airport Arts Program, 16 of the 41 California artists are from Orange County--meaning that they have lived here, were educated here or worked here at some point in their careers. The labels don’t indicate which artists are, or were, “locals,” but that’s probably a touch of provincialism we can live without.

Much of the work--which incorporates plane, car, boat and other vehicle imagery--is brightly colored, lighthearted and full of detail or loose, busy brushwork. Cartoon-like figures abound, and the exhibit as a whole has a daffy, “Look Ma, I’m so cute” air.

That’s not the sort of attitude that generally gets high marks in the art world. Even the concept of lumping together works of art based purely on shared imagery and a cheerily upbeat outlook would seem trite in a museum context.

But an airport is not a museum. Some of the work, at least, seems sufficiently complex or striking to attract an idle traveler’s attention, even if the show as a whole is lightweight.

During a briskly escorted pre-opening tour on Tuesday, I was able to see only the pieces in the north concourse and the small sculptures, displayed in museum cases.

Among the sculptures, Scott Schoenherr’s “Immigration”--a large ceramic boat peopled with identical figures of hatted men clutching briefcases--seems to be offering a wry commentary on the colonization of distant places with executives of multinational corporations.

Dustin Shuler’s “Spindle Plane”--a polka-dotted model mounted on a spindle and accompanied by miniature toy workmen, each of a different (racial?) color--is a reworking of the Orange County artist’s familiar images of impaled cars. David Gale’s “Tropic of Cargo” is an elegant metal crossbow construction, with an airplane in place of the arrow. The accompanying small metal sculpture head in a generic “African” style smacks of the chi-chi simple-mindedness of decorator art, however.

In the north concourse, Roy de Forest’s dotty (literally and figuratively) and gently subversive style shows itself to good effect in a large painting, “Sailing With the Couple Tough and Mr. Rauty.” The oddball passengers in the boats include a silhouetted red nude with an exotic headdress, a fellow in a green Afro, a huge, sad white dog, a big bird and a white man covered with the artist’s trademark little dots.

Bruce Houston’s “Stella Truck” is something of an insider art joke--the three-dimensional piece consists of a geometric painting, in the “protractor” style of artist Frank Stella, mounted on wheels and attached to a truck cab. Mildred Kouzel offers her familiar Greek vase images updated with freeway scenes (in one piece, the handles of the vase neatly serve as overpasses).

Mark Bullwinkle’s “White Star Airlines” is a giant painted steel construction, a flattened plane with toothy, red-lipped passengers visible through oversize windows. Oddly, considering the context, the pilot in this piece looks like he’s having a fright attack.

The exhibit also includes a number of small wall cards with quotes about travel by such famous literary figures of the past as novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, playwright George Bernard Shaw, poet Robert Frost and critic William Hazlitt. (A sample, from naturalist Henry David Thoreau: “The man who goes alone can start today, but he who travels with others must must wait until that other is ready.”)

Good stuff, this--food for thought in a frantic world. May we hope for a bigger pool of quotes from women, people of color and famous folks of our own generation in the future?

After all, what better place to show an awareness of the immense diversity of this planet than at an airport?