Museums

For years, Kim Cho-gang kept her oddball art collection out of sight, hidden away in a basement. She admits hers is a rather unusual assemblage: wood carvings, paintings, puppets and embroidery -- all celebrating the lowly chicken. There are roosters and hens big and small, birds depicted clucking, scratching and crowing. Since 2006, these works have had a public place to roost. Setting aside her lifelong dream of opening a child-care center, the 70-year-old former public health professor runs the Seoul Museum of Chicken Art, a private facility containing all things fowl.

Stuart A. Ashman wasn't looking for a job last year, when he first laid eyes on the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. Then New Mexico's state secretary of cultural affairs, he had come to Los Angeles for the American Assn. of Museums' annual meeting and accompanied a group of Cuban museum professionals to a program at MoLAA. Ashman got acquainted with the facilities, exhibitions and collection at the low-profile institution billed as "the only museum in the United States exclusively dedicated to modern and contemporary Latin American art. " But what he saw most clearly was its potential.

Florence, Italy , has recently joined Rome and Naples in offering a single entry card, this one good for admission to 33 museums and passage on all its public transportation. The Firenze Card , which costs 50 euros (about $70) and is good for 72 hours, grants admittance to sites large and small, including The Uffizi for the Botticelli masterpieces (without endlessly standing in line – look for the special entrance for card holders) The Academia to see Michelangelo’s David.

On Jan. 29 and Aug. 27, the city of Berlin will stay up late to play. Nearly 70 of the German capital's museums, historical sites and other cultural centers will open their doors from 6 p.m. on Saturday to 2 a.m. on Sunday during the " Long Night of the Museums . " [ For the Record, 1:55 p.m., Jan. 20: An earlier version of this post said that the "Long Night of the Museums" would occur every weekend, beginning Jan. 29 and...

After nearly a quarter-century of assessing admission fees, Baltimore's two largest art museums -- the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Museum -- will be free of charge as of Oct. 1. The new policy, modeled on that of several other museums nationwide, is aimed at boosting attendance, increasing visitor diversity and raising the city's profile as a tourist destination.

As issues such as global climate and evolution increasingly become part of public discussion, museums are finding their roles as educators expanding. "We have the opportunity to educate the public about issues of profound concern to them," said Ellen Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. That doesn't just mean exhibits on topics in the news.

Museums in Los Angeles and New York have had to shelve expansion plans because of the struggling economy, but two major projects in Boston are moving forward, the Boston Globe reported Wednesday. Officials at the Institute for Contemporary Art said they've raised about $17 million of the $60 million they want for a new building that is expected to open in 2006. And the Museum of Fine Arts says it is on track with a $425-million campaign to expand its facilities.

As an art historian who is immensely grateful for the resources and personal assistance available in the truly specialized museums in New Orleans' Vieux Carre, I take exception to free-lance writer Carol P. Smith's article on special museums in the French Quarter (Sept. 28). Apparently in the struggle to include a few offbeat "gee-whiz" attractions, the writer not only strayed outside the historic quarter to find another, but neglected to mention the majority of genuine specialized museums in the Vieux Carre.

Army Capt. Claudio Montane wants one thing clear from the start: This place is not a narco-museum. The point is not to glorify drug traffickers. "Its purpose is to show Mexico and the world the efforts and the good results that we have achieved," Montane said, opening a tour of a military collection officially called the Museum of Drugs.

Anyone with a Bank of America or MBNA credit card will be able to use it to gain free admission to 25 museums in California and 61 others nationwide during the month of May. It's the bank's way of acknowledging May as National Museum Month. This is the 10th year but the first time in has included California.