Given the diminishing supplies and rising costs of the black gold that dominates global politics, this amazing piece by Santa Barbara artist Alver may well be even more relevant now than when he created it in the early 1980s.

The central disk of this world-shaped work spins like a roulette wheel. Close up, the staples fringing the periphery seem to suggest acres and acres of gridlocked automobiles going nowhere. Notice the wads of green in the globe-encircling rubber tube.

West of the West.