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Like being searched to see an art show - and, horror, having your cell phone confiscated.

What happened to the wine and cheese?

But this was no ordinary show, and the 20 questions and body-scan were a small price to pay.

The vast Bernalillo County Metropolitan Courthouse is home to "Judicial Notice," a newly revealed, first-class collection of art assembled by graduate students and faculty from the University of New Mexico Department of Art and Art History.

Grad student shows are a poorly kept secret among art collectors. It's where you find progressive art at bargain prices and, if you're lucky, a future superstar. What you won't find is many people outside the art-savvy.

The Metro Court show changes that.

The edgy work of Patrick Nagatani, Karl Hoffman, Christine Chin, Mary Goodwin, Lea Anderson, Betty Hahn and Jim Kraft is there in all its glory, beautifully displayed on the gallery-like walls of the 144,000-square-foot courthouse. In all, 50 pieces by several dozen artists.

And about 4,000 people a day are taking it in, anything but an artsy crowd: lawyers, judges, police officers, plaintiffs, defendants, convicts, family, jurors.

The courthouse is made for art. Hallways radiate off a soaring, three-story rotunda. Pieces are hung around each floor of the rotunda and, much like at New York City's Guggenheim Museum, they can be seen from countless angles and vantage points. The hallways then offer a more intimate exposure, and pillars provide an occasional surprise.

It wouldn't be student art if it wasn't cutting-edge. The paintings, photography and multimedia pieces are challenging and diverse.

This is a big space to fill, and the work holds its own.

Anderson's "Bumpy Zoids" sets the tone. Free-form three-dimensional shapes - colorful and textured - climb a lobby wall. Opposite is the well-drawn and thought-provoking "Muley Pointi September 14" by Rory Coyne, showing a man standing before lines of script, a window over his heart.

Russell Hull's "A Moment of Clarity" and "Epiphany Rendered" are landscapes like no others, real and surreal; and Hoffman's "Under Control" is a psychedelic abstract, exploding with color and movement.

The jury room has the wonderful "Caf?," by Ashlie Maxwell, who brings a soft touch to realism, and digital photography by the incomparable Chin ("Vegetable Human Hybrids") and Goodwin ("Broken Home" and "Grandma"). Maybe jury duty isn't such a bad thing.

Some startling work peeks from pillars: "Blue Gloves Girl" by Monica Vigil, "Unifried" by Eric Garcia, and Kathleen DeNooyer's moody "Untitled Self Portrait."

But the high point of the show is along the third-floor hallway, a small collection by art department faculty who are generally not widely exhibited. It's a treat.

Kraft's consummate abstracts "Sweetness and Light Head for the River" and "Stellar by Daylight" hang alongside Hahn's buoyant photo litho "Let Me Explain," from the "Series B Grade Western," and Jim Jacob's expert, evocative charcoal "Falling Water."

Adrienne Salinger's "Living Solo" series of photographs is touching and revealing. And in "Inchoate," the renowned Nagatani dissects communication with layers of pencil, paint, photography and masking tape.

The idea of an art collection began with court spokeswoman Janet Blair, who was hired two years ago and felt the place looked bare.

"I told my boss, `We really need art on the walls and some plants,' " she says.

She asked state museums, the Department of Cultural Affairs, the Albuquerque Museum and Expo New Mexico if they had any pieces the court could exhibit on loan. The city's One Percent for Art did provide the majestic "Scale of Justice," a kinetic sculpture by Evelyn Rosenberg on the courthouse plaza; "Germination," a black granite sculpture by Michael Orgel in the center of the rotunda; and "The Desert of Life," a nine-piece grouping of stained glass by Janet Linden and Denise Taylor that hangs in the third-floor windows.

But that left a lot of wall space.

The court's chief judge, Judith Nakamura, contacted her friend Hull, a UNM graduate art student, who said he knew where there was plenty of art - at the university.

Hull put out a call to grad students - who jumped at the chance to show their work - gathered art for the collection and drew up an agreement with the court.

"We went to UNM with a pickup truck and got the first of three loads of art," Blair says.

Faculty artists came on board, and gave the students and the court a connection to the art department, after Jacob got a look at the space.

"It's such a great space," he says. "The space elevates everything in an interesting way. Everybody was surprised at how well it worked. The artwork and the space complimented and transformed each other."

Because the exhibit is not a permanent collection, the artwork is for sale but can't be picked up until the exhibition contract is up next summer. Blair has a brochure listing the names of the pieces and the artists along with the UNM art department's phone number. People interested in buying will be put in touch with the artists.

The interest is already there. Jacob says he's gotten several calls.

"I keep hearing from lawyers and judges about different pieces, `I've got to have it. I'll rip it off the wall and go home with it,' " Blair says with a laugh.

They'd better act fast, because Blair's goal is to get a permanent collection. In the meantime, she hopes to have yearly juried exhibitions supplied by the university.

"Instead of just hearing talk about pleadings and sentencings and such, I capture bits of conversation about the aesthetics or color of a painting," Blair says. "People are talking about art and art theory in the courtroom halls. It's there to trigger public enjoyment and discussion about art."

The show sets the courthouse apart. Most institutional collections are traditional and predictable, leaning heavily to landscapes and Southwest design.

This is bold and different, and it shows you don't need Wilson Hurley to bring majesty to the walls of public spaces.

For the students and faculty, Metro Court gives them a great opportunity to reach out and show the community what's going on along the front lines of art.

It's worth the trip.

And you get your cell phone back on the way out.