The University Art Museum (UAM) is welcoming visitors this Saturday with food, drink and priceless artwork at its exhibition reception for the current show, “Out of Site: Selections from the Marsha S. Glazer collection.”

Before gazing upon the multi-million dollar collection, guests can listen to the UCSB Jazz Ensemble or hover near the food and beverage tables. The exhibit, which is protected by newly installed video cameras and motion sensor detectors, features work from artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, David Hockney, Pablo Picasso, Arshile Gorky and Jackson Pollock. The reception, sponsored by Friends of the University Art Museum, is open to the public from 6 to 8 p.m.

The museum’s director, Bonnie Kelm, said the museum has experienced unprecedented attendance since the Marsha S. Glazer collection opened Jan. 5.

“We’ve had hundreds of people every day,” she said. “We’ve had lines in front of the museum.”

Because of its popularity, Kelm said she is expecting between 700 and 800 people to attend the reception Saturday night. However, last week’s mudslides may shrink this total, she said.

“It depends on the weather and whether [Caltrans] opens up the 101 [Freeway],” she said. “People planned to come up from L.A.”

Natalie Sanderson, the curator of education for the UAM, said the collection — which has previously never been shown in a museum — contains some of the world’s most well-known artists. Many of the featured works are not the artists’ most easily recognized, but they are stellar works nonetheless, she said. Furthermore, Marsha Glazer did not choose the pieces for their popularity, but rather for their ability to complement her home environment.

“Each piece she chose was for a specific [location] in the house, thus the [collection’s] title ‘Out of Site’ and its potential double meaning,” she said.

Several pieces were also chosen for sentimental value, Sanderson said. For example, the Glazers said they believe the scrap metal used in their David Smith sculpture came from the same metal yard in Indiana that the Glazers currently own, she said.

Further explanations of the exhibit’s works will be given by one of about 14 UCSB students working as docents at the museum every Wednesday at 12 p.m., Sanderson said. Sanderson, who teaches a year-long docent-training course for credit, said her class offers both a theoretical approach as well as hands-on experience.

Kelm said she recommended that visitors attend one of the museum’s upcoming featured events focusing on the Marsha S. Glazer collection. Kelm will give a lecture at the UAM titled “Gallery Talk – the Politics of Gender: Pollock and Krasner, Rauschenberg and Johns” on the Jan. 20. Also, on Feb. 9, art critic Gerard Haggerty, who wrote the information tags for the exhibit, is hosting the art symposium in Isla Vista Theater at 5 p.m. The luncheon with collector Marsha Glazer on Jan. 31, however, is already fully booked, Kelm said.