Berkeley, CA, October 3, 2007 -The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) is pleased to announce that Jacquelynn Baas has been appointed director during the interim period following the retirement of Kevin E. Consey. Baas is Director Emeritus of BAM/PFA, having previously served as director from 1988 – 1999. Her new appointment begins on October 8, 2007, and will last until a permanent director is found.

"I am excited about this opportunity to return to the University and work with an institution and staff I know and admire," Baas says. "Kevin Consey and architect Toyo Ito have worked together to produce a wonderful building design. I hope to keep the project moving in anticipation of the arrival of a new director for the museum."

"I am delighted that Dr. Baas has agreed to come back to the museum and film archive that she led so ably in the past," says George W. Breslauer, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, UC Berkeley. "Her assistance during this crucial transition will help us to maintain our momentum toward realizing the vision of a splendid new home for BAM/PFA."

Before coming to Berkeley, Baas served as Assistant Director at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and as Chief Curator and then Director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, where she oversaw construction of a new museum designed by Charles W. Moore that opened in fall 1985.

Baas retired from BAM/PFA in July of 1999 to devote herself to writing and consulting. From 1999 to 2005 she founded and directed the arts consortium, Awake: Art, Buddhism, and the Dimensions of Consciousness. She has organized some thirty exhibitions, including The Independent Group: Postwar Britain and the Aesthetics of Plenty (1990), No Boundary: Duchamp, Cage, and Especially Fluxus (Gwangju Biennale, Fall 2006), and currently Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life (Hood Museum, scheduled for 2010-11). Her recent publications include: Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art, co-edited with Mary Jane Jacob (University of California Press, 2004) and Smile of the Buddha: Eastern Philosophy and Western Art from Monet to Today (University of California Press, 2005). Baas received her Ph.D. in the History of Art from the University of Michigan.

About BAM/PFA
BAM/PFA is the visual arts center at the nation's leading public university, the University of California, Berkeley. One of the largest university art museums in the United States in both size and attendance, BAM/PFA engages audiences on campus, in the Bay Area community, and beyond, presenting consistently innovative and challenging perspectives on art and film from a wide range of cultures and backgrounds.

BAM/PFA is recognized internationally as a center for excellence in the presentation of visual art. Innovative and intellectually rigorous, the museum exhibition program presents new perspectives on historical and contemporary art and artists from around the world, as well as important emerging artists, often in their first U.S. exhibitions. The museum's collection of more than 15,000 objects includes exceptional examples of mid-twentieth-century painting, including important works by Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. Other significant strengths include historical and contemporary Asian art; early American painting; Conceptual and contemporary international art; and California and Bay Area art.

The Pacific Film Archive became a curatorial department of the museum in 1970, and has since become one of the nation's most respected and comprehensive film exhibition, collection, and study centers. Internationally recognized for its commitment to increasing the understanding and appreciation of the art of cinema, PFA's exhibition program surveys films in critical, cultural, and historical contexts, frequently including in-person conversations with filmmakers, authors, and scholars. The PFA film and video collection now includes the largest group of Japanese films outside of Japan, as well as impressive holdings of Soviet silents, West Coast avant-garde cinema, seminal video art, rare animation, Central Asian productions, Eastern European cinema, and international classics. PFA is actively engaged in film preservation, with a focus on endangered works of experimental film and video.

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The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Additional support is provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Koret Foundation, the Bernard Osher Foundation, Packard Humanities Institute, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Columbia Foundation, the Christensen Fund, the William H. Donner Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, Gap Inc., other private foundations and corporations, and our individual donors and members. Major endowment support has been provided by the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation and by George Gund III.

BAM/PFA Information

Museum Entrance:
2626 Bancroft Way, just below College Avenue near the UC Berkeley campus.

Gallery and Museum Store Hours:
Wednesday and Friday to Sunday, 11 to 5; Thursday, 11 to 7. Closed Monday and Tuesday.

PFA Theater:
2575 Bancroft Way at Bowditch

Museum Admission:
General admission is $8; admission for seniors, disabled persons, non–UC Berkeley students, and young adults (13 – 17) is $5; admission for BAM/PFA members, UC Berkeley students, staff and faculty, and children under 12 is free; admission for group tours is $3 per person (to arrange a group tour, call [510] 642-5188). Admission is free on the first Thursday of each month.

PFA Theater Admission:
General admission is $9.50; admission for seniors, disabled persons, UC Berkeley staff and faculty, non-UC Berkeley students, and youth (17 and under) is $6.50; admission for BAM/PFA members and UC Berkeley students is $5.50. Additional features are $4 for all patrons.

PFA Ticket Sales:
Daily 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. at the museum's Bancroft lobby admissions desk, and one hour before the first showtime of the day at the PFA Theater box office.
Advance tickets: Online at bampfa.berkeley.edu, or charge-by-phone: (510) 642-5249.

BAM/PFA Information:
24-hour recorded message (510) 642-0808; fax (510) 642-4889; TDD (510) 642-8734.

Website: bampfa.berkeley.edu

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