Bay Area Arts Community Taking Stock : Arts: Organizations are assessing quake damage to their buildings and collections, with a special concern for the Fort Mason complex, where many works are feared lost.

Many Bay Area arts organizations have closed their doors or canceled rehearsals and performances this week, struggling to determine everything from the extent of damage to buildings and collections to how badly their vital computerized fund-raising databases have been affected.

While some museums suffered costly losses of artworks and significant damage to buildings, first- and second-day reports indicate that institutions whose telephones were working escaped with surprisingly few problems. Many organizations still could not be reached on Thursday, however, and the silence suggests that more serious damage reports may emerge in the next few days.

There was serious concern Thursday for the fate of collections and arts buildings in the Fort Mason Center complex near the devastated Marina District. Fort Mason, a former Army base, is the home of the Mexican Museum, the Museo Italoamericano, the San Francisco Craft & Folk Art Museum and the Magic Theater.

The entire complex remained sealed off even to museum staff members and officials Thursday morning as structural engineers struggled to assess apparently heavy damage. However, Marie Acosta-Colon, director of the Mexican Museum, said there were fears that damage to art objects was enormous.

She said museum workers observed a number of Colonial saint figures and pieces of furniture crash to the floor in the seconds following the first tremor, immediately before Fort Mason was completely evacuated. Acosta-Colon said an asbestos-covered pipe apparently broke loose in the shock and asbestos fibers may have sprayed over large parts of the collection.

Acosta-Colon said a 300-piece collection of ceramic pieces from the estate of Nelson Rockefeller was also feared to have sustained massive damage. She said the museum’s insurance coverage apparently is far below the potential cost of the damage and that she was concerned the Fort Mason buildings may be condemned. The Mexican Museum has the largest collection of Mexican and Mexican-American art objects in the country--7,000 pieces in all.

“We could not assess the damage because the staff was ordered to leave immediately and there was a major gas leak,” she said in a telephone interview. “I can only imagine the worst.”

In Sacramento, Juan Carrillo, deputy director for programs of the California Arts Council, said the organization has notified the National Endowment for the Arts that it will seek an emergency disaster relief grant for arts organizations of between $100,000 and $200,000. Carrillo said it would take about two weeks for arts officials to get a detailed picture of the extent to which arts groups require special assistance.

At the Asian Art Museum in Golden Gate Park, about 100 stone sculptures and porcelain objects--less than 1%--of the collection of 12,000 pieces were broken, according to a preliminary survey, said Lilia Villanueva, head of public relations. The museum has not estimated the value of the loss, she said.

“Miraculously, no glass objects were broken. That speaks well of the way the pieces were installed and secured in displays and storage,” Villanueva said. About 80% of the museum’s vast collection is in storage.

The building sustained cracks in basement offices and in floors on the main and second levels, she said. Building inspectors were assessing damage and checking for asbestos leaks on Thursday.

The Oakland Museum sustained serious losses of artworks, including several glass and ceramics pieces in the museum’s crafts collections and various objects in a display of art and artifacts on California history. Two contemporary sculptures, by David Bottini and Robert Hudson, also were overturned and a 6-foot jade pagoda lay on its side, broken in several pieces. The contemporary metal sculptures and the jade pagoda can be repaired, said associate director Phil Mumma, but “at what cost I don’t know.” He said it was too soon to put a dollar value on the museum’s total losses.

“At this point we’re going through the galleries where there was damage and picking up all the infinitesimal pieces to see what we can conserve. It’s sort of like archeology,” he said.

“Given the strength of the shake, which was amazing, and our proximity to the freeway that collapsed, I expected the damage to be much worse,” he said.

A preliminary engineer’s survey indicated that the sturdy modern museum building had survived intact, but the building has been closed for an indefinite period pending an inspection by city building inspectors, he said. The closure necessitated cancellation of a multidisciplinary symposium, “20/20: Focus on California Past and Future,” scheduled this weekend at the museum.

Among other visual art institutions, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art lost only one artwork, a Peter Voulkos ceramic sculpture, according to Millicent Gaudieri, executive director of the New York-based Assn. of Art Museum Directors. There was “significant cosmetic damage” to the building but possible structural damage had yet to be determined, she said.

An employee added that skylights had fallen, the walls had cracked and several sculptures had toppled. Staff members who could easily reach the museum were reportedly at work on Thursday.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco reported no serious damage to artworks or buildings, according to press officer Linda Jablon. She said some sculptures had toppled over but no works were known to be destroyed. The situation looked so hopeful that the M.H. de Young Museum may be able to reopen on Saturday, she said.

Attempts to reach the Friends of Photography’s new Ansel Adams Center south of Market Street also were unsuccessful.

In the East Bay, the University Art Museum at UC Berkeley escaped unscathed, according to director Jacqueline Bass.

The San Jose Museum of Art, housed in a historic 1890s structure, suffered only “minor apparent damage”--cracks in walls and some fallen plaster, director I. Michael Danoff said. The staff was installing a new exhibition when the quake hit, so very little art was on display and none was damaged, he said.

The Richmond Art Center was closed on Wednesday because the area was being inspected for gas leaks, but it was engaged in “business as usual” on Thursday, curator Michael Schwager said. “We watched pictures fly off the wall” and swept a layer of broken glass when the quake ended, he said, but only the glass covering the artworks was broken. All the artworks and expensive Macintosh and Sony computers in the center’s current “Art and Technology” show survived intact, as did the building, he said.

Preliminary reports suggest that damage to performing arts institutions may be extensive. Margaret Jenkins, artistic director of San Francisco’s Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, said she was conducting a rehearsal when the earthquake struck. “We felt it the way you often do when an earthquake first starts, but then it became clear what was going on,” she said.

Jenkins said virtually all performing arts organizations in the city were officially closed, with most hurriedly seeking evaluations of rehearsal and performance spaces by structural engineers. Jenkins said arts organizations were heeding requests by city officials that they cancel rehearsals and performances for the rest of the week.

Louise Strasbaugh, who took over as executive director of the Chamber Symphony of San Francisco just one day before the earthquake, said she and many other arts organization officials had serious concerns about the damage inflicted by the prolonged power failure to computer systems containing ticket reservation, subscriber information and fund-raising databases.

While most arts groups shuttered their offices Wednesday morning, Strasbaugh said she found power still out at her apartment and decided to prepare and cook all of the food in her freezer, walk over to work and serve it to whoever she found at the office. “We’re just sitting around eating,” she said, awaiting results of a structural inspection of the building.

The orchestra, which does not open its season until November, will not be forced to alter its performance schedule she said.

The San Francisco Ballet, which occupies a comparatively new building, sustained only minor damage, but its offices were officially closed. A spokesman said no performances would be immediately affected because the company is performing in Orange County this week.

Bay Area theaters appear to have fared well. In general, the show will go on.

El Teatro Campesino, located just a few miles from the San Andreas fault in San Juan Bautista, suffered virtually no damage and will present two new one-acts this weekend--Josefina Lopez’s “Simply Maria” and “Food for the Dead.”

The city’s theater district near Union Square was virtually shut down. San Francisco’s flagship theater, the American Conservatory Theatre, expects to resume performances of “Right Mind” at the Geary Theatre on Monday. The Geary, built about 1910, sustained no visible damage, but weekend performances were suspended pending a check of the structure.

“Durante,” at the Golden Gate Theatre, has been temporarily suspended until the theater can be certified as safe. Four performances were canceled, and a spokesman said he did not know when the theater would reopen.

“Les Miserables” at the Curran Theatre postponed its first preview from tonight to Saturday. The company was rehearsing in the theater when the quake struck. No damage or injuries were reported, but the theater had to be checked, and power wasn’t restored until Thursday morning.

The Berkeley Repertory Theatre came through unscathed. It’s rehearsing “Reckless” for a Wednesday opening. The Theatre Artaud had no problems, either. The Dell’ Arte Players continue there with “Slapstick.”

As reports of damage to arts organizations trickled in, state arts officials largely remained in the dark about their member organizations.

Robert Reid, director of the California Arts Council, Reid said he believed the effect of the quake, especially on small arts organizations--including galleries, small performing arts companies and similar groups--would be tremendous. “I would imagine the impact on those arts organizations simply is going to be that they are crippled,” Reid said.

Juan Carrillo, the arts council’s deputy director of programs, said, “I’m having zero luck” learning the fate of specific arts groups. Carrillo said state officials were particularly concerned at damage to off-exhibit museum collections in storage areas where large volumes of pottery and other breakable materials might have been displaced by the force of the quake.

East Coast offices of national arts organizations were similarly unable to account for earthquake losses at Bay Area institutions. In Washington, the National Endowment for the Arts said its state arts program office had attempted to contact Bay Area arts organizations, without success. An endowment spokesman said there had been unconfirmed reports--apparently originating from news media--of some damage to the San Francisco Opera House. The opera offices were apparently closed Wednesday and Thursday, as were offices of the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Performances.

The American Assn. of Museums in Washington said a staff member had been assigned to try to determine the extent of damage to Bay Area museums but that the organization had been unable to obtain any information because of telephone problems.

Times Staff Writers Dan Sullivan and Shauna Snow contributed to this story.

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