Foldable, portable art. In practice, it sounds like a great idea. A handle here, a hinge there, a locking mechanism to keep everything in place while you’re on the move. Can’t bear to be parted from a piece of art? Take it with you!

That’s conceivably what Carlos Villa was going for when he created the pieces on view in Cushion Works’ The Code , a show of sculptural paintings made toward the end of the San Francisco artist’s life. These are artworks that come complete with their own crates — or rather, they are crates.

However, these may be the most difficult-to-transport works shown in Cushion Works’ history. Villa’s weighty, large-scale contraptions, slim as suitcases but made out of heavy-duty wood and plywood, hinge open to reveal maps of angled scratches, grids of painted pane

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