NEW YORK—Doryun Chong has been appointed associate curator in the department of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, the museum announced today. Chong served at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis for six years; his most recent position there was associate curator of visual arts. Chong's achievements at the Walker include organizing the exhibitions "Brave New Worlds" (co-curated with Yasmil Raymond) and "House of Oracles" (co-curated with Phillipe Vergne). He was also responsible for a number of acquisitions of first works by international artists to enter the Walker's collection. Chong, who is a contributing editor to Art AsiaPacific magazine, will join MoMA in late May.

NEW YORK—Artist Judy Pfaff and architect Tod Williams are among nine new members voted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, reports the Associated Press. The other inductees include authors Richard Price and T.C. Boyle, poets Jorie Graham and Yusef Komunyakaa, and composers Stephen Hartke, Frederic Rzewski, and Augusta Read Thomas. The 250-member academy has members from three categories: art, music, and literature. Openings occur when a member dies. Academy artists are encouraged to serve on committees that award prizes, but there are no official responsibilities beyond the initial induction, which this year will be held in New York in May.

LOS ANGELES—Araceli Ruano has been appointed president of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, reports the Los Angeles Times blog Culture Monster. Having originally joined the commission in 2005, Ruano will serve as president for one year as part of a rotation in which members from each of the county's five districts take turns. Her previous positions include working as a political and policy advisor for Al Gore during his vice presidency and working as an attorney, although she stopped practicing law in 2008. She was a past chief executive of the Panama-based ALAS Foundation, which recruits artists and business leaders to aid in early childhood development programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. She currently chairs Discovering the Arts, a group formed in 2005 to advise the Los Angeles Unified School District on establishing a $242 million high school of the arts scheduled to open in the fall.