Curators

Two look-alike oil paintings hang side by side in an alcove of the Fisher Museum at USC: one in an intricate gold frame, the other pinned to the wall like a memo. To the untrained eye both are the work of French painter Charles Émile Jacque, but USC senior Jayme Wilson points out a handful of flaws in the unframed painting. The lighting is off, details such as the animals and house are warped, and there are color variations. It turns out the pinned-up painting is a replica. The sociology and art history student had discovered that at least two museums claimed to own the same painting.

When Native American activists from around the U.S. took over Alcatraz in 1969, George P. Horse Capture was a steel inspector for the state Department of Water Resources - a young man on his way to a solid career and ever further away from any sense of pride in his Montana reservation roots. "I was very happy climbing that white mountain of success," he once said. "But then I looked down over the top, and there was nothing there. " The solution was to switch mountains. Joining the protesters for short periods over their 19-month stay, Horse Capture went on to become a passionate advocate for Native American culture and a museum curator who helped give his people an unprecedented voice in how their heritage would be presented and their artifacts displayed.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is rolling out an art Hot 100 of sorts - website videos starring 100 of the New York City museum's curators, each of whom discusses a single work from the museum's collection “that changed the way they view the world.” “Starring” may not be quite the word as regards the curators, judging from the first six 2-1/2 to 3-minute videos posted on a web page dubbed “82 nd & Fifth,” after the museum's location....

Mexican art and Mexican American art often have treated each other more like strangers or distant cousins than like the fraternal twins they really are. In the United States, apart from in California and the Southwest, many museums and art professionals until relatively recently tended to isolate or ignore Mexico's contributions to global movements such as Modernism or Conceptual and performance art. Similarly, in Mexico, U.S. Chicano art of...

Diana du Pont, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, has resigned to pursue other opportunities in curatorial work, writing and teaching. During her 15-year tenure, Du Pont expanded and reorganized the museum's collections of European, American and Latin American art.

Catherine Hess, the curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum who organized its current, critically acclaimed exhibition "Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture," has been appointed curator of European art at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens. She will succeed Shelley Bennett, who has become a senior research associate at the Huntington. A specialist in European sculpture and decorative arts, Hess has compiled a lengthy resume of exhibitions and publications during her 24-year tenure at the Getty.

Lisa M. Morrow of Pasadena is among the student curators of "Roman Portraiture: Images of Character and Virtue," which will be at USC Fisher Gallery March 28 to April 20. Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays. The student curators have researched 14 Roman portraits in marble, which are on loan from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu.

The Museum of Contemporary Art has appointed two new curators. Philipp Kaiser joins MOCA after more than five years as curator for modern and contemporary art for the Museum fur Gegenwartskunst Basel in Switzerland. He replaces Connie Butler, who left MOCA after 10 years to become the Robert Lehman chief curator of drawings at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

ATLANTA - Travelers often race through airports with barely enough time to check luggage, but the busiest airport in the world invites them to check out something altogether different. "Mammatus," the latest art installation at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, is inspired by mammatocumulus clouds that form in severe storms, swelling into smooth round puffs the artist likens to a woman's breasts. Christopher Moulder, an Atlanta-based sculptor, said there was no message to his abstract piece, fashioned out of a metal bead chain into a pendulous ceiling fixture that changes color according to date and time.

M.A. Greenstein, curator of education at the Laguna Art Museum since January, 1991, has resigned to concentrate on her teaching and writing. The museum is seeking a replacement for the full-time position. Laguna Art Museum Director Charles Desmarais praised Greenstein's energy and commitment to her job. "She did it marvelously well. The next person who does her job will have a tall order to fill."

Tucked away and forgotten for years in a museum storage bin, the small oil painting held a great secret and was just biding its time, waiting for someone to notice it. And then one day someone did. So began the Case of the Curious Curator. It all started in 2000 (actually a couple centuries earlier, but that's getting ahead of the story) when a canvas in dreadful condition called "Venice: The Molo from the Bacino di S. Marco" was bequeathed to the Denver Art Museum from a deceased local collector's foundation.

Urs Fischer likes big gestures, and this year (April 21 to Aug. 19) MOCA is giving him the space to make them, devoting part of its Grand Avenue and Geffen buildings to a midcareer survey of the Swiss-born, New York-based artist. The show's curator, Jessica Morgan of the Tate Modern in London, gives us an early sense of what to expect. How did you come to curate this show for MOCA? Through my relationship with Urs. We've been doing projects now for 10 years or so. The first one was a big show in Iceland about [the influence of]

Hungry Cat Hollywood's birthday bash: The Hungry Cat in Hollywood is throwing itself a birthday party on Friday in celebration of the restaurant's eighth anniversary. The bash will pay tribute to chef and owner David Lentz's hometown of Baltimore by featuring an outdoor barbecue, pit beef sandwiches, grilled oysters, a raw bar and $8 cocktails on the dinner menu. Call for reservations. 1535 N. Vine St., Hollywood, (323) 462-2155, www.thehungrycat.com . Alain Giraud at the Strand House: Champagne and caviar are what's on the menu for the next dinner in the Strand House's Culinary Masters series.

The man who made a fortune bringing the Super Bowl, Bill O'Reilly and Grateful Dead concerts to listeners nationwide via their local radio stations has returned to programming. But now he's bypassing conventional radio. Norman J. Pattiz, who created and turned Westwood One into one of the biggest and most recognizable radio networks in the country, is this week launching PodcastOne.com, a one-stop site that offers shows from hundreds of online broadcasters for listeners to browse and download.

This sturdy Austrian had supporting roles in the recent action movies "Skyfall" and "Zero Dark Thirty," the TV western "Justified" and the military video game "Medal of Honor: Warfighter. " The ubiquitous performer - actually a semiautomatic pistol - is the Glock-17. A kind of Kevin Bacon of firearms, the Glock-17 appears without ceremony in movies and TV shows year after year, largely because it's also popular with the law enforcement officers being depicted. There is one place, however, where the Glock-17 is treated like a star - along with the dainty Walther PPK/S handgun that is James Bond's sidearm of choice, the long-barreled Winchester rifles the Prohibition agents tote on the 1920s-set HBO show "Boardwalk Empire" and the oversized Desert Eagle pistols used in the "Modern Warfare" and "Far Cry" series of video games.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is rolling out an art Hot 100 of sorts - website videos starring 100 of the New York City museum's curators, each of whom discusses a single work from the museum's collection “that changed the way they view the world.” “Starring” may not be quite the word as regards the curators, judging from the first six 2-1/2 to 3-minute videos posted on a web page dubbed “82 nd & Fifth,” after the museum's location....

The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego has appointed a new head curator and hired two new assistant curators. Curator Toby Kamps, who has been with the museum since January 1998, will head the exhibitions programs. Stephanie Hanor, who is a doctoral candidate in art history from the University of Texas, Austin, and Rachel Teagle, who has a doctorate in art history from Stanford University, also will join the curatorial department.

Karol Wight, a 22-year veteran of the J. Paul Getty Museum, was named its antiquities curator Wednesday. She succeeds her beleaguered former boss, Marion True, whose job she has held on an acting basis since True's resignation under fire in October 2005.

The brain drain continues: Rebecca Morse is leaving her job as associate curator at MOCA for a post with the same title within LACMA's photography department. She will start her new position on Feb. 1, replacing Edward Robinson and reporting to photography head Britt Salvesen. Her departure leaves only two curators at MOCA (Alma Ruiz and Bennett Simpson), down from a high of seven curators in early 2009. That year the museum implemented various cost-cutting measures and layoffs, following a financial crisis and bailout by trustee Eli Broad.

Ninety-six works by 26 artists from the United States, Europe and Asia, brought together to illuminate a big - but overlooked - idea. "Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void, 1949-1962" is vintage MOCA. A boldly thoughtful, revisionist exhibition that focuses on destruction as a creative force, it's the sort of show that has long distinguished Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art. The project is also vintage Paul Schimmel, who organized "Destroy the Picture" and edited its substantial catalog.