Art exhibits don’t only inhabit fancy galleries.

They can also sprout up in the most innocuous of spaces – a front yard.

The new exhibit “Where I Learned to Look: Art from the Yard” at Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, 30 W. Dale St., explores the role of yards in shaping contemporary art in the U.S. It opens Friday with a free opening reception from 5-8 p.m., and runs through July 25; fac.coloradocollege.edu.

“I’m thinking of it (yard art) as the space between home and the wider world that people still have creative agency over and putting it on display for the greater world, rather than a certain kind of shape or form,” said artist and art historian Josh T. Franco, who curated the show.

Franco first got curious about yard art due to his grandfather, a prolific yard artist, whose works will be in the group show, including a windmill he made.

The reason for Franco’s intrigue is simple: “That you can basically do what you want.”

More than 30 artists are included in the exhibit. Works include small pieces, like framed snapshots, and much larger works, like the oversized cornhole set in the FAC courtyard that people can play and the beautifully decorated Volkswagen Beetle in the gallery.

Franco will install a new piece in the outdoor sculpture gardens facing Cascade Avenue, as will Denver Native American artist Steven Yazzie, who will contribute a sculpture based on real estate signs.

“Some is art from actual yards, some is art that depicts yards,” Franco said. “Some of it is contemporary art made in a studio, made in context for a gallery or museum, but takes the language of yard art in some way. There’s a good track record, a few decades, of people thinking about this world of art.”

Franco will also install two snake sculptures at The Yard, a project space and site for public art curated by Jessica Langley and Ben Kinsley in their front yard in the Divine Redeemer neighborhood. Plug the coordinates 38.847596,-104.799216 into Google Maps for an exact location.