A change at the top at MOLAA

Pleased with what he’s helped establish in his eight years as director of the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, including a recent $15-million expansion that more than doubled its size, Gregorio Luke is leaving at the end of this month to be an independent lecturer-producer. His ambition: to use new multimedia technology to give large audiences a rock-concert-like experience as they learn about art and other subjects.

“Everyone has acted with great surprise, and it’s hard to leave a place as beautiful as MOLAA,” Luke said Friday. But at 47, he said, he wants to pursue his big, not-yet-fleshed-out dreams while he’s still young enough to try.

“I would like to do for art what rock did for music: amplifying it, using technology, incorporating all the new digital technology, with huge projections.”

While Luke enters his troubadour phase, the Museum of Latin American Art is proceeding with a new management structure and a new top executive. Robert J. Myers, who for the last 10 years has headed the cultural services division for the city of Torrance, assumed the new position of president July 30; Alex Slato, the associate director under Luke, is now vice president of exhibitions. Myers succeeded Nancy Fox, whose title was chief executive.

-- Mike Boehm