Russia’s Hermitage Opens to the World : A high-level international campaign is under way to enlist the aid of art lovers in renovating the storied museum.

The woes of St. Petersburg’s venerable Hermitage Museum are not a Russian state secret. Ever since the mid-1980s when glasnost and perestroika opened the former Soviet Union’s doors to Western reporters and loosened the lips of the museum’s staff, press reports have sounded alarms about crumbling plaster, peeling paint, faulty plumbing and inadequate security--all of which endanger one of the world’s greatest art collections.

But now that a high-level international campaign to upgrade and expand the Hermitage is under way, you are likely to hear much more about the museum’s problems and how you can help.

Send money? Well, yes. The Hermitage fund-raisers have a goal of raising $300 million to $400 million to renovate the palatial structure and expand into several nearby buildings now occupied by military facilities. But the campaign also aims to raise awareness of the museum’s status and to make the venerable institution a more prominent member of a worldwide museum community, according to Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovski.

Traveling across the United States with representatives of UNESCO and the American Friends of the State Hermitage Museum Inc., Piotrovski recently stopped in Southern California where he met with cultural leaders and visited the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Huntington Library, Art Galleries and Botanical Gardens.

“We are developing a new way of life at the museum, a more open way,” Piotrovski said in an interview. Part of the process is cultivating “friends who have special connections to the Hermitage or special feelings about it,” he said.

The Russian government provides the majority of support for the museum’s annual operating budget, contributing $4 million of a $7-million budget last year and around $7 million of this year’s $10-million budget. The government also will be the major contributor to the renovation and expansion project, but gifts must make up the difference.

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“In this new situation we have won our freedom, but we have to pay for the freedom,” Piotrovski said. Donations also help pressure the government to do its part, he noted.

Asking foreigners to help save a national monument requires Russians to swallow their pride, Piotrovski said. Potential foreign donors, on the other hand, ask why they should support a Russian institution when many of their hometown museums are needy. With its vast international collection of art, the Hermitage symbolizes Russia’s ability to embrace the world’s culture, but the museum also belongs to the world and deserves widespread support, he said.

UNESCO is leading the fund-raising drive and helping to establish foreign Friends of the Hermitage chapters, each of which will adopt a special project.

The American Friends was launched last June and promptly gave the museum $50,000 for a security system. The group’s current goal is to raise $12 million for a new museum entrance that will provide orientation information and other visitor services. “The new entrance will be much more comfortable and user-friendly,” Piotrovski said. “It’s quite symbolic of our new attitude.”

ALL’S FAIR: For the first time in nine years, ART/LA isn’t happening because of the art market’s continuing slump. But two other contemporary art fairs--which promise to be more affordable for dealers and collectors alike--are coming to Los Angeles, and both are being launched Friday through next Sunday.

The Gramercy International Contemporary Art Fair--a dealer-organized fair whose debut at New York’s Gramercy Park Hotel last spring was a raging success--will open in the Southland at Chateau Marmont in Hollywood. For the New York affair, adventurous young dealers installed artworks in hotel-room closets, bureaus, bars and beds, and low-end sales were reportedly brisk. At the upcoming Los Angeles event, about two dozen galleries will present works by emerging artists on five floors of a landmark hotel, at 8221 Sunset Blvd., from noon to 8 p.m. each day. Participants include Food House, Sue Spaid and TRI galleries from Los Angeles; Fawbush, Jay Gorney and Pat Hearn from New York, and Xavier Hufkens from Brussels. The art is for sale, but there’s no admission charge.

“Above all, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun,” says Santa Monica dealer Christopher Grimes, who plans to display artworks in the living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom of his suite. Although the setting has limitations, it allows potential buyers to see art in a homelike atmosphere instead of a clinical art-fair booth, he says. The Gramercy approach is the way to go in the ‘90s, according to Grimes, because it “takes the pressure off” in an intimate atmosphere that encourages dialogue.

The other fair, Art Los Angeles 1994, will be staged at Los Angeles Convention Center. Organizer John Natsoulas, who owns a contemporary art gallery in Davis, previously announced plans for a December art fair at Universal Studios. Natsoulas says he switched to the Convention Center because he hadn’t reserved enough space to accommodate the unexpectedly large number of dealers who responded. Among the 60 or so participating galleries are Nicholas Treadwell of London, Galerie Liaison Beaux Arts of Paris, Jain Marunouchi of New York and William Turner of Venice, Calif. Artists talks and demonstrations also are scheduled. A $35-ticket benefit for the Archives of American Art will kick off the fair on Thursday, 6-9 p.m. Public hours: Friday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Saturday, noon-10 p.m.; next Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Admission: $8 for a one-day pass, $12 for a weekend pass (good for Saturday and Sunday).

Yet another event is planned at Santa Monica’s Broadway Gallery Complex on Saturday, 6-10 p.m. Eleven galleries will present an “Art of Giving” exhibition and sale, with 10% of proceeds benefiting Inner-City Arts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing youths with positive experiences through the arts. Information: (310) 829-3300.

ROMPER ROOM: Molly Barnes, an art dealer, consultant and commentator who divides her time between Los Angeles and New York, has advice for all you artists who don’t know what you’re doing. In a new paperback book, “How to Get Hung: A Practical Guide for Emerging Artists,” published by Journey Editions, she offers tips on such baffling problems as how to behave at art openings and how to cultivate critics--and drops plenty of names in the process.

As to getting the word out, she counsels artists to give their exhibition press releases “a tough proof-reading.” However, a press kit advertising her book says that Georgia O’Keefe (sic) was Barnes’ role model.

Moving right along to a chapter called “Look Good Like an Artist Should,” Barnes writes: “Good-looking people get attention in every field and the art world is no exception.” If you don’t happen to be “naturally appearance conscious,” she offers this: “Get help.” You could, for example, attend a student day at Vidal Sassoon or accept a make-over offer from a cosmetics firm.

When preparing for a dealer’s visit to your studio, you should provide two chairs, preferably old-fashioned rockers. It’s OK to wear jeans and a nice T-shirt, “if they are clean and pressed,” she says, but women artists should dress to show off their figures.

CLAY TALK: “West Coast Ceramics,” a panel of ceramic luminaries John Mason, Jim Melchert, Susan Peterson, Paul Soldner and Peter Voulkos, is scheduled for next Sunday, at 2 p.m., at Scripps College Humanities Auditorium in Claremont. A closing reception for the exhibition “Revolution in Clay: The Marer Collection of Contemporary Ceramics” will follow, from 3-5 p.m.

After leaving Scripps, the 50-year survey of ceramic art will travel to eight museums across the country. The college has published a 176-page color catalogue of the Marer collection, with essays by Kay Koeninger, Mary Davis MacNaughton and Martha Drexler Lynn, in conjunction with the exhibition.