Museum Exhibits

From the time he was a schoolboy, John Kobal was in love with Hollywood. He longed to become a part of it, and eventually he did -- by befriending faded movie stars and forgotten photographers, enchanting them with his sincerity and his hungry memory, and collecting photographs. By the time he died in 1991, at 51, he had amassed thousands of anecdotes and a million photographic images. Kobal set up a photo agency to profit from all this material, but he kept the best for himself, including original prints and negatives from such famed studio photographers as Clarence Sinclair Bull, George Hurrell, Ruth Harriet Louise, Eugene Robert Richee and Ernest Bachrach.

Nineteenth-century photographer Eadweard Muybridge, an English merchant's son who immigrated to the United States at age 21, is famous for three things: his own bizarre spelling of his name, his sensational acquittal for the murder of his wife's lover, and his blurry but indisputable photographic proof that Occident, former California Gov. Leland Stanford's racehorse, galloped by lifting all four feet off the ground.

Bowers Museum director Peter Keller may have his museum booked until 1995, having traveled to China and other far climes to oversee every detail of his scheduled exhibits, but I'll bet he doesn't know he's going to have a yurt full of Tuvans on his lawn.

On a recent weekday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, fifth-grader Edwin Mendoza's eyes were opened to the 19th-century world of Queen Victoria. At the same time, J.J. Albert, a 22-year-old Cal Lutheran University senior, was poring over once-private documents on the 40th president's immigration policy for his final project.

Looking at the World War II internment camp barracks reconstructed in Little Tokyo, Ron Mukai felt a tinge of worry and pride. He was proud that he was able to help transport to Los Angeles an original barracks from a former camp in Wyoming, where his father's family was forced by the federal government to live because of concerns that Japanese Americans were a subversive threat.

With less than a month to go before opening day, the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace was opened for a last press tour Tuesday before the facility is shut down for the final installation of exhibits. The day was one for memories, as Clara Jane Nixon told reporters about how she helped save family artifacts that are being included as exhibits in the house next to the library where her famous brother-in-law was born Jan. 9, 1913.

The exhibits in the tiny Darder Natural History Museum here run from the grotesque to the bizarre. There is a stuffed calf with two heads, a baby pig with two mouths, an entire family of lions and a Great Dane that once belonged to the founder. Another room holds two tanned human skins--male and female--several shop-worn mummies and a row of glass jars containing human fetuses from one month to nine months old. And then there is El Negro.

Hunter Crosby stood three small mirrors on edge, shifted one ever so slightly, then peered at the objects framed inside. Straightening, the young researcher gave his appraisal. "Totally cool," he said, a satisfied grin spreading across his face. Hunter, 10, had "discovered" the kaleidoscope. "Kaleidoscopes: Reflections of Science and Art" at the Fullerton Museum Center, offers a kid-friendly introduction to the scientific principles of the kaleidoscope through 14 interactive learning stations.

Born a peasant, Felice Feretti matured into a severe and haughty prelate with piercing eyes, a long white beard and farsighted urban vision. He became an arrogant and imperious man, "related to the devil," some claimed. He also became, at age 65, one of history's most dynamic Popes. As Pope Sixtus V, he left an indelible stamp on Rome in a frenetic five-year reign from 1585-90, transforming his capital from a medieval hodgepodge into a Baroque showplace.

Everybody has their own way of looking at contemporary art. Some peer through parted fingers, stopping just long enough to draw an instant conclusion before rushing off to the next piece. Others stand for hours before a single work, staring wide-eyed as they struggle with a thousand conflicting interpretations.