Retrieve: Inside the "Icebox"

Presumably, the average museum visitor gives less thought to what it means for a museum to have a “permanent collection” than to the actual art on view. To be brief, what isn’t shown is stored--a much larger percentage of the collection of works remains normally unviewed. And if what’s in storage is “unseen,” then more so is the room itself; USC Fisher Museum’s storage room is a very small space concealed slyly within the USC Roski School of Fine Arts, an ordinary doorway un-announcing to the everyday student-passersby.

Behind these double-doors are a variety of artworks resting within a climate-controlled environment. All along the walls hang paintings, drawings, prints and mixed media works, while framed photographs are shelved on what appears as a tall, black bookcase at the back of the room. Older/larger paintings/works take their residence on sliding metal racks. Pulling out a single rack without knowledge of the collection is as if to uncover a treasure; you’ll find a painted portrait of Lincoln on one, a Warhol screenprint on another.