Los Angeles County Museum Of Art

With the film series at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art heading into the sunset, this weekend and the next provide a chance to do three good things at once: (1) experience the soon-to-be-empty Leo S. Bing Theater, one of this city's great movie venues, (2) see some wonderful films -- "Being Jewish in France," a compelling documentary, from Friday to Sunday, and "Leon Morin, Priest," a rare Jean-Pierre Melville classic on Aug.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art finally has fulfilled the vision it had for its biggest foray into Islamic art - a goal thwarted until now by the government of the Russian Federation. The only problem is that Angelenos would have to travel more than 8,000 miles to see it. In "Gifts of the Sultan: the Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts," now on view in Doha, the capital of Qatar, art that Islamic rulers had sent long ago to the czarist courts are finally on display - courtesy of the State Hermitage Museum and National Library of Russia inSt.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art saw its investment portfolio lose nearly a quarter of its value during its 2008-09 fiscal year, which coincided with the worst worldwide financial debacle since the Great Depression. The $254.7-million pile of cash and investments shrank to $196 million, a 23% drop, according to figures in the audited financial statements that LACMA recently posted on its website. The most worrisome development for LACMA -- as for many nonprofits -- has been the recession's effect on fundraising.

Los Angeles' newest rock star, like so many before her, sleeps by day and rolls on by night, gathering, as they say, no moss. She stops in one town after another - in Ontario, La Palma, Lakewood and Long Beach. In each, she tantalizes and mesmerizes, conjuring a joyful circus, even a few moments of unbridled exuberance that some might regret down the road. Then, just as her star is brightest, she moves on, as if someone had given her the same advice offered by Gypsy Rose Lee's mother: Always leave them wanting more.

When the Los Angeles County Museum of Art unlooses the wild beasts caged up in its galleries as "The Fauve Landscape" on Thursday, L.A. will take one look and think it has died and gone to Paris. The show is a huge, splendid 175-work compendium tracing the short life of the art movement that brought radical art into the 20th Century and made it truly modern.

Although some may not consider lizards and slimy fish to be the materials of fine art, French artist Bernard Palissy found their forms intriguing. He combined his interest in natural history with his artistic abilities to create his line of ceramic "rustic ware," all featuring the kinds of creatures you see here. To make this platter, the artist collected creatures (bugs, frogs and fish, for example) and made molds. What's a mold? Think of an ice cube tray, which is a type of mold.

When the Los Angeles County Museum of Art launched a search for a chief curator of American art, Bruce Robertson was on the short list of potential contenders, but he wasn't interested. He was happily ensconced at UC Santa Barbara, where he has taught art history since 1991. What's more, he says, as a member of the art faculty, "I got to do the shows I wanted without dealing with the hassles at a museum."

It's only natural, given their proximity to Mexico and rapidly growing Latino constituencies, that California art museums would be engaged with Latin American material. But the robust lineup of exhibitions, exchanges and educational programs indicates that the days of focusing on historic "treasures" or romanticized figures such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are over. Museum directors and curators are talking about examining fresh topics and weaving Latin American art into a global fabric — in projects that require inter-departmental collaboration, international networking and community outreach.

EVENTS At the Good Food Pie Contest, the proof is in the pastry. Home cooks and pros will put their baked goods to the test at this pie throwdown judged by a distinguished panel of chefs and food journalists. In addition to the contest, the festivities include pie-related workshops, an apron fashion show and music by KCRW DJ Anne Litt. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. 12:30-4 p.m. Sun. Free. (323) 857-6000. http://www.kcrw.com/pie.

Virginia M. Fields, a leading scholar of early Mesoamerican art and archaeology who joined the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's curatorial staff in 1989 and devoted 22 years to making the museum a vital center of Latin American culture — partly by organizing major exhibitions such as last year's "Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico" — has died. She was 58. Fields, who had suffered from diabetes since her youth, died Wednesday night of long-term complications from the disease in a hotel in Mexico City.

Marcel Proust had his madeleines, delicate confections whose mere taste stirred up powerful private memories. Americans have movies and television shows, and the personal associations we ascribe to rewatching "Casablanca" or "Star Wars," or seeing an old TV clip of "Columbo," can be as piquant as the scent of popcorn. This summer at LACMA, Christian Marclay's cinematic artwork "The Clock" (2010), a 24-hour-long compilation of thousands of film and TV clips, will offer remembrances of Hollywood matinees past.

As a leading contemporary ceramic artist, Elsa Rady created elegantly simple porcelain vessels and often controlled how they were presented by bolting the refined pieces into place. "She really forged her own path and became a force," said Jo Lauria, an independent curator who included Rady's work in "Craft in America," a national touring show that debuted in 2007. "Calculating the experience of the viewer ? I don't know of any other artist who is her equal in that," Lauria said.

After nearly five years of constant construction and much more still to go, leaders of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art have resolved not to continue until they have socked away an additional $100 million in donations on top of the $320 million in cash and pledges given so far. A mixed review of LACMA's recession-buffeted finances issued Wednesday by Moody's Investors Service lays out the reasons why the museum that opened the Broad Contemporary Art...

"It's going to be great," J. Ben Bourgeois says of his next big thing — the gala that will launch the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion this month at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Technically, it's incredibly challenging. Artistically, it's like taking a collection and bringing it to life. " Could he be a little more specific? The invitation to the Sept. 25 "unmasking" of the 45,000-square-foot temporary exhibition hall designed by Renzo Piano offers tables of 10 for $25,000, $50,000 and $100,000 and lists the inaugural shows: "Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico," "Eye for the Sensual: Selections from the Resnick Collection" and "Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915.

When John Baldessari's retrospective "Pure Beauty" opens at the L.A. County Museum of Art on June 27, expect to see several generations of artists on hand for the opening-week events. For as long as he has been making art in Los Angeles, Baldessari has also been, in a less tangible way, making artists: offering suggestions, encouragement and above all conversation to twenty-something students eager to follow in his footsteps by living a life of art. Follow they did, with their own gallery shows, museum shows, teaching gigs, and some commercial successes that have at times even surpassed their teacher's.