In what is shaping up to be a happy tradition in Santa Barbara’s art landscape, we seem to be in a high season for local art surveys on museum walls. Currently, the Westmont Museum of Art is presenting its annual “Tri-Counties Juried Show,” ( bit.ly/4vFRdp5), showing 50 artists winnowed down from 422 applicants.
Meanwhile, the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (MCASB) is showing its third annual Arte del Pueblo exhibition, a giddily jury-free and “throw it against the wall and see what sticks” brand of community art culling. As it happens, a lot does stick in this year’s potpourri show, slicing across ranks of professional and amateur and fine and not-so-fine art.
In the mission statement on the MCASB website, the project’s objective is made clear in the section called “The Process”: “To ensure true access, we remove traditional barriers. There is no theme. There are no jurors. There are no gatekeepers. Just art, and the community that makes it.” This is a democratic, all are welcome, cross-section of art being made in our pueblo, and the result is fascinating, on various levels.