ART : A Checklist for Hiring Newport Museum Director : Respect within the profession and savvy of contemporary works are rated tops among qualities that the winning candidate ought to have.

I am the very model of a modern art museum head.

I know the folks with money and can quote the latest eight-page spread

From journals coffee-table size, in tones that always sound well-bred

(with apologies to William S. Gilbert’s lyrics for “The Pirates of Penzance”)

The museum is mum. The search firm isn’t talking. All we know for sure is that James Demetrion, director of the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gardens, has turned down the job. But that doesn’t mean people on the outside can’t offer up a wish list of what Newport Harbor Art Museum should be looking for in its new director--the man or woman to replace Kevin E. Consey, who left in November to lead the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. I think the successful candidate should have:

1. Respect from the museum profession and art world nationally and internationally. That goes without saying, now that Newport has become a major player on the national art museum scene. It also has a bearing on the hiring of a new chief curator to replace Paul Schimmel, who leaves for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles next month. Much depends on the mutual rapport and respect between director and chief curator. People tend to hire individuals who share similar points of view. A respected director is likely to attract and select a strong candidate for this pivotal position, charged with determining the focus and direction of the museum’s exhibition schedule.

2. Contemporary art savvy. This one is more tricky than it looks. Many people interested in contemporary art are happy to greet the latest work by, say, Billy Al Bengston or Ed Moses. Conceptual art, on the other hand, may strike them as peculiar, off-putting and difficult. That’s OK if you’re a collector, but it’s not at all OK if you’re the director of a contemporary-art museum.

By tacit agreement of the people who display art in major museums and those who review it major magazines, the most exciting art being produced today is--broadly speaking--involved in examining ideas about the way images and objects function in the context of mass culture. (For example, “OBJECTives: The New Sculpture,” a show curated by outgoing curator Paul Schimmel that opens April 8 at Newport Harbor, contains objects that are reflections of a culture in which good and bad taste, as well as historical styles in art and design, have become whimsically interchangeable.) Any Newport Harbor director worth his salt should be a knowledgeable and wholehearted supporter of conceptual art--which also probably means being on the younger side of the art world generation gap.

3. A track record in orchestrating museum building campaigns. This also goes without saying. Although Consey was new to the task, the job of collecting $50 million to build and endow Newport Harbor’s new building is sufficiently daunting to call for a director experienced in dealing with the challenges and frustrations of fund raising and construction.

4. Relative youth, high energy. In the gung-ho, frisky environment of Southern California, youth is a plus. A director in his or her 30s or 40s is also likely to be more active and interested in “the art of the now” than someone who secretly or not-so-secretly prefers the work of generations past.

5. Charm--specifically the ability to get on well with people in a position to donate impressive sums of money to the museum--and the wholehearted respect of the museum’s trustees. As Fats Waller supposedly told the woman who asked what jazz was, “If you gotta ask, you don’t know.” The kind of charm that appeals to museum supporters involves more than wearing smartly cut suits or hosting terrific parties. The magic mix combines authority, deference, humor, tact, warmth, polish and effortless social skills.

6. Flexibility and an innovative viewpoint. Although its temporary exhibits encompass a full range of modern and contemporary art from the United States and Europe, Newport Harbor has been dedicated during its 28-year history to collecting only postwar California art. Nowadays, this goal seems parochial. Who really cares whether artists were born here or live here so long as their work is strong? A flexible, innovative museum director won’t be afraid to explore all kinds of new ways of doing things--such as abandoning the California emphasis in lieu of some more globally aware way of setting Newport Harbor apart from other contemporary museums on the national scene.

7. A commitment to scholarship. One of Consey’s great legacies to the museum is his emphasis on the importance of the museum catalogue as the permanent record and reference source for exhibitions. Consey encouraged the production of catalogues with substantial, serious essays by experts in the field. The new director should have a similar history of overseeing the production of catalogues that add measurably to the world’s knowledge, as opposed to pretty picture books. Score more points if the director has actually authored a respectable, zero-fluff-content book or catalogue.

8. An attitude of non-interference in the work of the curatorial staff. This becomes particularly important if the person’s contemporary-art-savvy quotient is deficient (See No. 2). If that’s the case, the director should be willing to serve in a purely administrative capacity and allow the curatorial staff to proceed--unencumbered except for necessary votes of confidence from the board--in the business of creating and selecting exhibitions and making acquisition choices. Another Consey legacy is his hands-off policy with regard to curating, and it has served the museum well.

9. A realistic outlook not rooted in self-aggrandizement. Particularly if the director is a younger person, it’s likely that Newport Harbor will represent an important steppingstone in career terms. That’s only natural. But the museum’s interests shouldn’t be subordinated to the iron whim of personal ambition.

10. Public-speaking skill and the ability to deal with the press as a candid straight-shooter. Today, as any chief corporate officer knows, you can’t expect your public relations department to shield you from contact with the public and the press. A director who can sound intelligent but not stuffy, who can alter the tone of a talk to suit the listener without changing the facts, and who doesn’t shirk from uttering the truth even when it hurts would be a great asset to Newport Harbor.

If you’ve read this far, you get a reward: the names of the two people who--according to the art world’s gossip hot-line--are the top candidates for the job.

No. 1 is rumored to be Henry Hopkins, 61, director of the Frederick R. Weisman Collection in Los Angeles and former director of the Ft. Worth Art Museum (1968-74) and the San Francisco Museum of Art (1974-86). No. 2 is rumored to be Julia Brown Turrell, director of the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa. Turrell was formerly curator (1981-83), senior curator (1983-86) and adjunct curator (1986-87) of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. She is married to James Turrell, the noted “light and space” artist.

Stay tuned.