Vital staffers have been leaving the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Amid a financial crunch that has forced painful cutbacks at arts institutions across the country, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is forging ahead on many fronts. The board of trustees continues to grow. Construction of a new building for temporary exhibitions, funded by Stewart and Lynda Resnick and scheduled to open next year, is on track. LACMA visitors currently have a choice of three large special exhibitions as well as permanent collection galleries.

But one part of the picture doesn't look so rosy. The museum's curatorial ranks have dwindled as key staff members have retired or moved on to new positions. A search for a Chinese art specialist has dragged on for nearly three years, and five curators have left this year or will depart soon. With a hiring freeze in effect, the situation raises questions about how long the vacancies will remain open.

Until the economy improves?

Forever?

"All the main positions will be filled quickly," says LACMA Director Michael Govan, who adds that the freeze will not prevent hiring people essential to the museum's programs. Finding a Chinese art curator is a frustrating challenge because there's a shortage of qualified candidates, and the museum's less-than-stellar Chinese collection makes it difficult to attract a top-notch scholar, he says. But he expects other key spots to be occupied soon.

J. Keith Wilson, LACMA's former chief curator of Asian art, left in 2006 to take a prestigious position as director and curator of ancient Chinese art at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C. June Li, another Asian art curator, moved across town a couple of years earlier to oversee the new Chinese garden at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino.

This year's exodus began with Mary Levkoff, curator of European sculpture and classical antiquities. She ended her 20-year career at LACMA to become curator of sculpture and decorative arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Then Kevin Salatino, LACMA's curator of prints and drawings, announced that he will depart this summer to direct the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine.

In the field of contemporary art, curator Howard Fox retired around the first of the year, and Lynn Zelevansky, head of the department, recently stepped up to the director's position at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.