Long Beach Museum

The annual Mexican Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead celebrations take over many of the city's art venues this week with exhibitions, performances, fiestas and poetry readings. In addition to exhibitions, special Dia de los Muertos events include the L.A. Photo Center's popular annual bash, on Saturday from 3 to 9 p.m. Included will be traditional Mexican and Latin American music by Quetzalcoatl, dancing, face painting, folk art booths, altars, pinatas and traditional food.

The Long Beach Museum of Art has announced the appointment of three new members to its governing foundation's board of directors. They are Justice Campbell M. Lucas, Gino Sasso and Bhupendra Singhal. "We are thrilled to have three such distinguished individuals join our board," foundation President Sheridan Beebe said in announcing the appointments. "Their knowledge and experience will be invaluable . . . as the museum continues to build its future on a solid base of community support."

The UCLA Film Archive's "Unknown Soviet Cinema" series begins tonight at 8 in Melnitz Theater with Mikhail Kalik's "Goodbye, Boys," a 1966 tale of three teen-agers who have enlisted in the armed services during the last summer of peace before the outbreak of World War II. The film is tender, and its black-and-white photography is eloquent and beautiful, but it is shamelessly manipulative and sentimental in the manner of the Soviet cinema of the time.

Quartet Music has become one of those groups that comes together when it's convenient, said percussionist Alex Cline, and it actually works because the ensemble isn't the music of any one or two of its members. "The group reflects those four people when they play music and it just takes on its own life," Cline said. "The compositions they contribute are written strictly with the group identity in mind so it dictates its own style.

The lazy days of summer seem to call for no-sweat art shows involving a minimum of mental energy on everyone's part. But every now and then, a summertime teaser actually has something to say for itself.

"Artists' Artists" is the third in a series of exhibitions at the Long Beach Museum exploring the art of collecting. On view through March 4, this installment showcasing the collections of eight Southern California artists is a wildly eclectic grab bag full of wonderful surprises and minor masterworks. Curated by Josine Ianco-Starrels, the show isn't too surprising in that the work these artists collect is pretty much in keeping with the work they themselves make.

MTV is the cable network that so many grown-ups love to hate, yet its long-lasting effects since its 1981 premiere are multitudinous and not necessarily all signs of cancerous moral decay. MTV has almost single-handedly made the short-form film viable again, even if its main function now is to advertise singles. The proof of this "success" is in the record sales that some of the hotter videos generated. These days, the typical rock video may have as many edits as an entire feature film and, combined with obtuse symbolism that may or may not mean anything, the editing is often bafflingly elliptical.

"I never told a joke in my life," the late comic genius Andy Kaufman once declared. As can be seen in "Kovacs and Kaufman," a retrospective survey of the television work of Kaufman and early video pioneer Ernie Kovacs (on view at the Long Beach Museum of Art through Jan. 7), Kaufman wasn't kidding. Often dismissed as a tasteless vulgarian with a few screws loose, Kaufman's comedy was in fact so revolutionary and sophisticated that no one knew what to make of it.

The Long Beach Museum of Art has appointed two new staff members to recently created posts. Sue Ann Robinson, an artist-in-residence at the museum during the last year, is coordinator of education. Robinson has been an art educator for 18 years. Joan van Hooten is the museum's first coordinator of membership and development. A longtime supporter of the museum, Van Hooten has an extensive background in art history, arts administration and fund raising.

Two highly unusual exhibitions are now being presented at the Long Beach Museum of Art. "Hidden Assets: Selections from the Permanent Collection" and "Reconstructed Realms" will be on display through Sept. 17. "Hidden Assets" will feature paintings, sculpture, drawings and prints from three categories. One group will contain work by American artists before 1950, including of George Bellows, Thomas Hart Benton, Ralph A. Blakelock, George L.