As if to partially satisfy the inherent art-worldly question “What’s lurking in your vaults?” the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art has tapped its permanent collection for its current exhibition, with focus and purpose. Specifically, the collection is surveyed in terms of a surprisingly rich niche of works on paper by sculptors, under the rubric of Between Planes: Exploring Sculpture through Print. Much of the credit goes to the generosity of Westmont alums Dewayne and Faith Perry’s Print Acquisition Fund, mixed in with art on loan.
Like the UCSB Art, Design & Architecture Museum’s recent permanent collection show Beyond the Object , the exhibition doubles as a visual treat unto itself and an unveiling of treasures rarely made public. Make no mistake: Between Planes is a soft-spoken dazzler of a show, well worth a visit before its December 20 closing date. For anyone reflexively lured by the presence of major art-world figures on beckoning walls, the show’s exhibition checklist includes Alexander Calder, Louise Bourgeois, Richard Serra, Auguste Rodin, Jacques Lipchitz, Henry Moore, Jean Arp, Claes Oldenburg, and Alison Saar, among other worthy lateral-minded artists.
Some of the most intriguing moments in the sampling come with the coupling of a given artist’s sculptural and paper productions, starting in the museum’s entryway gallery. Mexican artist Marcos Ramirez ERRE’s eye-chart-like framing of a telling Salman Rushdie quote (“Even the freest of free societies are unfree at the edge”) blends with his two-headed, wooden “Toy An-Horse” sculpture, a comment on strained U.S.–Mexico relations also sporting a line of actual stones to across the gallery. (Warning: Don’t step on the art.)
