It's typical for curators of the Carnegie International to make career moves after completing these prestigious shows, and Douglas Fogle is no exception.

The Carnegie Museum of Art announced yesterday that Mr. Fogle would be leaving to become chief curator and deputy director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, effective May 1.

As curator of contemporary art at the Carnegie since 2005, Mr. Fogle organized several solo exhibitions in the Forum Gallery and added significant works to the museum's collection.

But his legacy will be the 2008 Carnegie International "Life on Mars" -- the first to have been given a title -- that placed a 20-foot tall "Help Us" on the Carnegie's roof referencing Hurricane Katrina victims, projected pedestrian-stopping films onto the museum's exterior, and had the most expansive Web site of an International. It also was the longest, at eight months, and drew the largest International audience, 279,693 visitors, in recent memory.

One of the first concerns of the next Carnegie director will be to appoint a new curator of contemporary art to organize the 56th Carnegie International. The date of the exhibition has not been determined.

There was speculation that Mr. Fogle may be offered the directorship of the Carnegie vacated by Richard Armstrong in the fall. Mr. Fogle says he wasn't aware of any rumors in that regard, but that he had various curatorial and directorial opportunities.

At the Hammer, Mr. Fogle will head the museum's curatorial and education departments, with responsibilities including oversight of exhibitions, programming, artist residencies and collection building.

He said the forthcoming move is bittersweet. "I'm very sad. I've had a great time here, and I love everybody here," he said. "But Los Angeles is my home away from home. It's such a great art city."

Mr. Fogle says the International experience, a rigorous process that kept him traveling globally for most of two years, was "life-changing." There isn't a like exhibition at the Hammer, but Mr. Fogle says he'll have the "opportunity to do projects with younger artists and more established artists, which is comparable to the Carnegie International in some ways."

The Hammer, a unit of the University of California, Los Angeles, seems a good fit for Mr. Fogle, whose International projected both his intellectualism and interest in film.

"My first love was always film and moving image material," he says. The Hammer is home to the Billy Wilder Theater, a 2006 state-of-the-art cinematheque that annually screens 200 works from the important UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Moreover, of all the LA-area museums, he added, the Hammer is the most committed to artists. "It's a very artist-friendly place."