Night Treasures

They rise out of the darkness like tinted bolts of lightning or misplaced mobiles by Alexander Calder, bits of metallic whimsy laid out for the pleasure of passersby.

Red, yellow, blue--their primary colors are bold enough to be seen even at night, especially when illuminated by headlights.

Not the kind of thing you’d expect to see on the side of the freeway--and exactly the effect artist Lars Hawkes hoped for when he installed them with his own money in 1992.

Though his self-funded exhibit provoked some controversy, Hawkes maintains that his only intent was populist.

“Most people never get to art museums,” he explained recently, “so like murals, you drive by them and incorporate them into your life.”

He said he made his sculptures big and kept them simple so people driving by at high speeds could enjoy them without being overly distracted. “Playful toy shapes,” he called them.

Like three-dimensional Rorschach tests, the three untitled pieces nestled next to the Sherman Way off-ramp of the northbound Hollywood Freeway are open to interpretation.

Some say they resemble Bullwinkle’s horns on top of counterbalanced beams, a white flame bursting from a blue squiggle or a thick nail piercing a delicate, red sun.

Regardless of how they’re viewed, Hawkes’ fellow sculptor Robert Devine characterizes such works as a way “to fight back against the depersonalization of the landscape.”