New Hammer Director Named

Ann Philbin has been named director of UCLA at the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center effective January 11, 1999. She succeeds Henry Hopkins, who is returning to teaching.

Philbin comes from the Drawing Center in New York City, where she has been director for nine years. The Center is the only non-profit institution in the country to focus exclusively on the presentation of drawings. During her tenure there, she also functioned as chief curator and organized numerous exhibitions, both contemporary and historical.

New York’s Village Voice called Philbin “culture’s brightest” and said she “transformed the somnolent, museum-like space into one of Soho’s most vital showcases for contemporary art.” The New York Times praised her for making the facility “a vital center of a largely overlooked aspect of contemporary art.” “She has introduced hundreds of new artists to the New York public,” said William Lieberman, chairman of the department of 20th-century art at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and a board member of the Drawing Center.

Prior to her position at the Center, Philbin organized large-scale public art exhibitions such as “The New Urban Landscape,” an exhibition of 28 installations at the World Financial Center in New York by renowned artists and architects. She also organized “Art Against AIDS: On the Road,” a nationwide exhibition presented on billboards, bus shelters, television, and in print media. She was director of the Curt Marcus Gallery and curator of the Ian Woodner Family Collection of old
master drawings.

Philbin serves on the boards of Streb Dance Company, The H.I.V. Law Project, The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, and Etant Donne, a foundation for French-American cultural exchange.

She holds a master's degree from New York University and a B.F.A. from the University of New Hampshire.

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Appointed

Photo by Barry Wong/ Seattle Times

H. Lorraine Sakata has been named associate dean for academic affairs. Sakata comes to UCLA from the University of Washington, where she was professor of music and served as chair of the ethnomusicology program, associate director of the School of Music, and acting director of the Middle East Studies Program and Middle East Center. Sakata received her M.A and Ph.D. from the University of Washington and her B.A. from UC Berkeley.

“Lorraine Sakata has demonstrated significant leadership both as an academician and as an art administrator and is very highly regarded among her peers and colleagues,” said Daniel Neuman; “I look forward to the valuable contribution she will make toward our commitment to arts education at UCLA.”

Senator Tunney Gives Commencement Address

“In my opinion, the course of study that you chose here at UCLA was enlightened because in the arts you have used your imagination to deal with the essential values of life,” said former California senator John Tunney in his commencement address to the 389 graduating students of the class of 1998. Tunney, who has been on the board of the UCLA at the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center since its inception in 1994, has served as its president since 1997.