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“Barry Stone: Highway 71 Revisited”

This photographer found plenty of life under the road

A A A Comments By Kelly Klaasmeyer Thursday, Jan 22 2009

Maybe Highway 71 isn’t quite as legendary as Route 66, but it has given Austin-based photographer Barry Stone plenty of artistic fodder. He created an entire body of work around — and under— the 253-mile central Texas roadway, Barry Stone: “Highway 71 Revisited.”Stone, who moved back to Texas from New York a year or so ago, can hear traffic from 71 in his backyard and has been re-exploring the roadway and its environs. He’s photographed family as well as total strangers beneath its overpasses and documented the often surreal scenes that surround it. In Targets, Texas Parks and Wildlife Expo, Stone captured a field of fake animals, set up as targets for bow-hunting practice. It’s an odd assortment of plastic foam-filled forms that include a javelina, a boar, a deer and a nonchalant bear. A cluster of arrows protrudes from each of them like nails from an African fetish. To flesh out the Highway 71 experience, headphones playing actual highway noise, “field recordings” made by the artist, accompany Stone’s photographs. There's an opening party on January 23, 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Regular viewing hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays; noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays. Through February 28. Lawndale Art Center, 4912 Main. For information, call 713-528-5858 or visit www.lawndaleartcenter.org. Free.