Quick Takes: Cyrus Cylinder at Getty

The Cyrus Cylinder — the famous ancient Babylonian artifact that is one of the British Museum’s most prized possessions — will come to the Getty Villa in 2013 as part of a U.S. tour to five museums.

The tour will begin in March at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington and then proceed to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, where it is expected to be on view from Oct. 2 through Dec. 2, 2013.

The Cyrus Cylinder is a clay object — now broken into sections — that is inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform with the story of Cyrus, the king of Persia, and his conquest of Babylon as well as the capture of Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king. It is believed to date from 539 to 530 BC and comes from what is now southern Iraq.

—David Ng

DGA to honor Milos Forman

Milos Forman, who won Oscars for directing “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Amadeus,” will receive the Directors Guild of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the organization’s annual awards ceremony on Feb. 2.

In announcing the award Wednesday, DGA President Taylor Hackford described the 80-year-old Czech director as “one of the greatest filmmakers of our time.”

“No matter what subject or genre he tackles, Milos finds the universality of the human expression in every story,” Hackford said.

—Susan King

ABC tribute to late Dick Clark

ABC is turning its first New Year’s Eve without

Dick Clark in four decades partly into a celebration of the showbiz impresario’s life.

Clark, who originated the annual “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” special in 1972, died at age 82 in April.

Fergie and Jenny McCarthy will be hosts of a two-hour tribute to Clark that will air at 8 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.

ABC said Wednesday that Ryan Seacrest will host the countdown show from Times Square, with Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen, Neon Trees, Flo Rida and Pitbull among the musical guests. Seacrest hosted the past few years, with Clark making short appearances. A stroke had diminished Clark’s ability to communicate.

—Associated Press

Psy amazed by video’s success

The South Korean rapper behind “Gangnam Style,” YouTube’s most-viewed video, says he never set out to become an international star.

“It’s amazing,” Psy told a news conference in Bangkok. “I made this video just for Korea, actually. And when I released this song — wow.”

Psy’s comments Wednesday were his first public remarks since his viral smash video — with 838 million views — surpassed Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” which until Saturday held the record with 803 million views.

Determined not to be a one-hit wonder, Psy said he plans to release a worldwide album in March.

“I think I have plenty of dance moves left,” he said, in his trademark sunglasses and dark suit. “But I’m really concerned about the [next] music video.”

“How can I beat ‘Gangnam Style’?” he asked, smiling. “How can I beat 850 million views?”

—Associated Press

SFMOMA gets Arbus donation

Gallery owner Jeffrey Fraenkel is making his hometown even more of a destination for photography, donating 26 works by Diane Arbus to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The 26 photos come from a series Arbus made between 1969 and 1971 that document mentally ill patients at different institutions.

They will bring SFMOMA’s total count of Arbus images to 64, making it the West Coast’s largest repository of her works.

The museum also announced the receipt of two other major gifts. An anonymous donor pledged 185 photographs by Japanese artists such as Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama and Hiroshi Sugimoto. And the Kurenboh Collection in Tokyo has donated 262 prints, heavy in Japanese modern and avant-garde images from the 1930s to the present.

—Jori Finkel

Stage named for Sam Wanamaker

Shakespeare’s Globe — the famous outdoor theater venue in London — will honor its late founder, the once-blacklisted American actor-director Sam Wanamaker, by naming a new indoor stage after him.

The indoor venue, which will enable the company to produce year-round, will be called the Sam Wanamaker Theatre. Wanamaker worked for many years to create the Globe but died in 1993 before he could see the finished project, which debuted in 1997.

The indoor theater is expected to debut in early 2014.

—David Ng