Museums and galleries are in Manhattan unless otherwise noted. Full reviews of recent art shows: nytimes.com/art. A searchable guide to these and many other art shows is at nytimes.com/events.
Museums
★ American Folk Art Museum: ‘Jubilation | Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined’ (through Sept. 2) Having escaped the ugly, West 53rd Street tomb of a building it inhabited from 2001 to 2011, the American Folk Art Museum has reoccupied its old space on Lincoln Square. This wonderful show of about 100 works from the permanent collection samples all the varieties of artistic expression under the museum’s purview, from portraits and quilts by anonymous craftspeople to otherworldly fantasies envisioned by so-called Outsiders like Henry Darger and Martin Ramírez. The revival of this irreplaceable institution is cause for rejoicing. 2 Lincoln Square, Columbus Avenue, at 66th Street, (212) 595-9533, folkartmuseum.org. (Ken Johnson)
Asia Society and Museum: ‘Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi 1707-1857’ (through May 6) This exhibition covers the late reign of the rich and powerful Mughals, from whom we derive the word mogul; it tracks their decline, which coincided with the rise of British rule in India. Wall texts describe imperial intrigue and violence, while paintings depict serene landscapes and interiors and exquisitely drawn courtly figures. There are British colonial patrons called “White Mughals” because they had Indian families and adopted local customs, and a final section in which the gruesome narrative told in the texts fuses with the images, in the medium of photography, in works like “Zafar in Captivity,” which shows the last Mughal emperor as a profoundly defeated man. 725 Park Avenue, at 70th Street, (212) 517-2742, asiasociety.org. (Martha Schwendener)
Bronx Museum of the Arts: ‘Juan Downey: The Invisible Architect’ (through May 20) In the wilder moments of his career, Mr. Downey, who died of cancer in 1993 at 53 and is getting his first United States museum retrospective here, reversed the traditional dynamic of sculpture, examining how humans could affect objects rather than the other way around; administered oxygen to pedestrians on the street in New York in “Fresh Air” (1972); and cohabitated as a kind of gonzo anthropologist — or early implementer of art as social practice — with the Yanomami Indians in Venezuela. Central to his vision, which drew on Frederick Kubler, critical theory and hallucinogenic states of mind, Mr. Downey also developed a concept of “invisible architecture,” which he described in 1973 as “an attitude of total communication within which ultra-developed minds will be telepathically cellular to an electromagnetic whole.” 1040 Grand Concourse, at 165th Street, Morrisania, the Bronx, (718) 681-6000, bronxmuseum.org. (Schwendener)
Brooklyn Museum: ’Keith Haring: 1978-1982’ (through July 8) Heavy on the party photographs and punk-to-New Wave soundtrack, this show repackages the mythic Haring — club kid, Warhol protégé and maker of friendly street art — for a younger generation. But other Harings emerge in rarely seen early drawings, collages, journals and, especially, in short performative videos like “Painting Myself Into a Corner” and “Tribute to Gloria Vanderbilt.” 200 Eastern Parkway, at Prospect Park, Brooklyn, (718) 638-5000, brooklynmuseum.org. (Karen Rosenberg)
Brooklyn Museum: ‘Rachel Kneebone: Regarding Rodin’ (through Aug. 12) Ms. Kneebone, a British artist, has been invited by the Brooklyn Museum to riff on Rodin and chose 15 works from the museum’s permanent collection to show with her own porcelain sculptures. She is drawn to Rodin’s maquettes, or the smaller models on which larger sculptures were based. Some works recall wedding cakes and Baroque or Rococo fountains. Chef d’oeuvre of the show, “The Descent” (2008), recalls Rodin’s “Gates of Hell” and is comprised of dozens of little figures descending into a cauldron-shaped pit. That Ms. Kneebone’s project is installed in the museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art might suggest that you’re going to get a feminist flogging of Rodin, but Ms. Kneebone does not head down that path. 200 Eastern Parkway, at Prospect Park, Brooklyn, (718) 638-5000, brooklynmuseum.org. (Schwendener)
★ Frick Collection: ‘Renoir, Impressionism and Full-Length Painting’ (through May 13) Impressionism, like fashion, is dedicated to the fleeting sensation: this moment’s light, this season’s dress. Yet the works in this exhibition, which transforms the Frick’s mohair-upholstered East Gallery into a runway for Renoir’s soigné Parisians, don’t at first register as Impressionist. With their traditional portrait format and imposing scale, they seem at odds with the modest plein-air paintings that define the movement. Central among them is the Frick’s own Renoir, “La Promenade” (1875-6), in which a stylish young woman guides two equally well-dressed little girls along a public garden path. 1 East 70th Street, (212) 288-0700, frick.org. (Rosenberg)
Frick Collection: ‘White Gold: Highlights From the Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain’ (through April 29) Porcelain lovers will not want to miss this show of domestic ware made in Germany in the early 1700s, but the big news is the new wing, the Portico Gallery, that it inaugurates. The Frick has transformed an outdoor colonnade into an indoor exhibition space. Floor-to-ceiling windows enclose a long, narrow space that feels bigger and airier than its actual 850 square feet. In the small rotunda at one end, a life-size, nude Diana by Jean-Antoine Houdon looks out over the traffic on Fifth Avenue with divine indifference. 1 East 70th Street, (212) 288-0700, frick.org. (Johnson)
★ Guggenheim Museum: ‘John Chamberlain: Choices’ (through May 13) The postwar sculptor John Chamberlain, who died in December, manipulated crushed car parts into abstract clusters that are both gorgeous and terrifying. As installed on the Guggenheim Museum’s curved ramps for this full-dress retrospective, they look, inevitably, like mangled wrecks on a speedway. Yet the show goes to great lengths to extricate Mr. Chamberlain from what he called “the car-crash syndrome.” It includes work made from foam, aluminum foil, paper and plexiglass, and it emphasizes the collage process behind the metal sculptures rather than the material that went into them. 1071 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street, (212) 423-3500, guggenheim.org. (Rosenberg)
★ Guggenheim Museum: ‘Francesca Woodman’ (through June 13) Francesca Woodman, the photographer who at 22 took her own life in 1981, is as close to a true saint as the putatively secular world of contemporary art can claim. The dreamy, formally playful and disarmingly erotic pictures she made — mostly of herself partly unclothed or naked — project a self surrendering unreservedly to the spirit of art. Viewing this riveting survey of her sadly abbreviated career, it is hard to shake off the admittedly absurd notion that she was too pure an artist for this muddy world. 1071 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street, (212) 423-3500, guggenheim.org. (Johnson)
International Center of Photography: ‘The Loving Story: Photographs by Grey Villet’ (through May 6) Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple from Virginia whose marriage prompted a benchmark 1967 Supreme Court ruling overturning state miscegenation laws, are portrayed not as political activists, but as political heroes who fell into history by accident. The story began on July 11, 1958, when a Virginia county sheriff and two deputies entered the Lovings’ bedroom at 2 a.m. and arrested them, saying they had violated the Racial Integrity Act. Mr. Villet’s images represent the heyday of social documentary, but also the midcentury photo-essay format. Ms. Loving later became a conscious activist when, on the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling, she made a statement supporting the right to marry, whether “black or white, young or old, gay or straight.” 1133 Avenue of the Americas, at 43rd Street, (212) 857-0000, icp.org. (Schwendener)
★ International Center of Photography: ‘Weegee: Murder Is My Business’ (through Sept. 2) From the home of Weegee’s voluminous archive, the latest exhibition about this great documentary photographer (1899-1968) revisits his frenetic, formative first decade of work, starting in 1935, when his often sensational images of murder and mayhem appeared in New York’s daily newspapers. His penchant for self-promotion, the work of his competitors and peers, the evolution of tabloid journalism and the great city that was both his subject and his audience are emphasized, with fresh curatorial precision and deftly used touch screens. 1133 Avenue of the Americas, at 43rd Street, (212) 857-0000, icp.org. (Roberta Smith)
★ Japan Society: ‘Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920-1945’ (through June 10) This beautiful, surprising and sociologically intriguing exhibition reveals how Japanese artists, designers and craftsmen cultivated their own version of Art Deco, that excruciatingly suave style of art, design and décor that prevailed in Europe and America during the 1920s and ’30s. The 200 paintings, sculptures, ceramics, glassware, jewelry, fashion and printed ephemera on display seamlessly blend East and West and old and new. You could almost believe it was the Japanese who invented Art Deco. 333 East 47th Street, (212) 832-1155, japansociety.org. (Johnson)
Jewish Museum: ‘Kehinde Wiley / The World Stage: Israel’ (through July 29) After earning a master of fine arts at Yale in 2001, Kehinde Wiley began exhibiting his large, figurative oil-on-canvas portraits of young black men in hip-hop apparel. With their emphasis on bright, acid colors and ghetto-fabulous outfits, the paintings borrowed heavily from the work of Barkley Hendricks, although Mr. Wiley’s contribution was to push things in a more bombastic direction, hijacking the format of old master portraits. Mr. Wiley’s work hasn’t changed much over the last decade, although his scope has gone global. This exhibition, which focuses on Ethiopian Israeli Jews, is shown alongside historic paper cuts and textile works he selected from the museum’s collection. The result is a fusion of Pattern and Decoration painting with figuration, a mash-up or sampling of historical styles and references. 1109 Fifth Avenue, at 92nd Street, (212) 423-3337, thejewishmuseum.org. (Schwendener)
★ Metropolitan Museum of Art: ‘Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition’ (through July 8) Concluding the Met’s series of Byzantine art blockbusters, this show tells the story of the Byzantine Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean, from Syria through Egypt and across North Africa, as it made contact with (and lost ground to) the emerging Islamic world between the seventh and ninth centuries. Loans from Egypt could not be secured, because of the continuing turmoil of the Arab Spring, but important pieces from Jordan, Greece and Georgia are among the show’s highlights. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Rosenberg)
★ Metropolitan Museum of Art: ‘The Dawn of Egyptian Art’ (through Aug. 5) The predynastic roots of the grand dynastic Egyptian art that we all know and sometimes love are exposed in this sublime, view-changing show. The most riveting and least familiar offerings are a selection of small objects, painted pottery and figures in clay or ivory that date from 3900 to 3100 B.C., quite a few of which are usually on view in the Met’s Egyptian galleries. Here they are supplemented by extraordinary outside loans and elegantly displayed in the Robert Lehman Wing. Sometimes it takes an exhibition. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Smith)
★ Metropolitan Museum of Art: ‘Naked Before the Camera’ (through Sept. 9) This resonant, illuminating if sometimes fraught exhibition traces the progress of the naked, mostly female body through photography from its early years nearly to the present with some 90 images, all owned by the Met. In works variously artistic, erotic, scientific, ethnographic, forensic and experimental, we see a medium stretched by human use and imagination. The male gaze is often relentless, but as time passes, individual faces, personalities and relationships come into focus on all sides; consciousness rises and oppressiveness decreases, which is a relief. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Smith)
Metropolitan Museum of Art: ‘Rembrandt and Degas: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ (through May 20) This lovely small show, focused on self-portrait paintings and prints, proposes that Rembrandt was a greater influence on Degas than has generally been recognized. Degas as a young man studied Rembrandt prints, copied at least one and made others imitating Rembrandt-type effects. But a group of four captivating self-portraits at the heart of the show — two by each artist painted at age 23 — suggests that the men were temperamentally about as alike as a cat and a dog. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Johnson)
★ Metropolitan Museum of Art: ‘Rembrandt at Work: The Great Self-Portrait From Kenwood House’ (through May 20) This late, magnificently plain-spoken self-portrait finds the artist in his studio, brush and palette in hand, contemplating his homely visage. Surrounded by, and generally overshadowing, several of the Met’s own Rembrandts, it is among the high points of European painting, not the least for the pale background wall where two drawn circles echo, abstractly and much enlarged, the painter’s intent gaze. Its emotional gravity and psychic complexity underscore why Rembrandt is often likened to Shakespeare in his epoch-changing grasp of human interiority. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Smith)
Metropolitan Museum of Art: ‘Spies in the House of Art: Photography, Film, and Video’ (through Aug. 26) This exhibition of 17 contemporary works inspired by museums doesn’t mention Theodor Adorno by name, but it nods toward his ideas in a wall text, which jokes that artists often see museums as “mausoleums, places where art goes to die.” Andrea Fraser’s video “Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk” (1989) leans toward the anti-museum view, while a 16mm film by Nashashibi/Skaer, the duo of British artists Rosalind Nashashibi and Lucy Skaer, made by gliding through the Met in the dark with a camera and a flash strobe, treats the museum like a darkened crypt. Lutz Bacher’s video offers another museum tour, while the museum appears in poetically distorted form in photographs by John Pilson, Tim Davis and Lothar Baumgarten. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Schwendener)
Metropolitan Museum of Art: ‘The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde’ (through June 3) Like the family it chronicles, this exhibition is fragmented and contentious with flashes of brilliance. It explores the closely intertwined collections of the siblings Leo, Gertrude and Michael Stein (and Michael’s wife, Sarah), casting these wealthy American expatriates as ahead-of-the-curve art patrons whose tastes and social networks shaped Modernism as we know it. And it shows Matisse and Picasso vying for the Steins’ attention. Highlights include Matisse’s Fauvist “Woman With a Hat” and, naturally, Picasso’s proto-cubist portrait of Gertrude. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Rosenberg)
★ Metropolitan Museum of Art: ‘Storytelling in Japanese Art’ (through May 6) An uncannily contemporary sense of fluidity, action and emotion courses throughout this captivating exhibition, which traces the Japanese penchant for narrative through hand scrolls, hanging scrolls and books, on to the expanded field of folding screens. The sublime 13th-century ”Illustrated Legends of the Kitano Tenjin Shrine” — five hand scrolls never before shown together — is a must-see. And the show’s second rotation of fragile treasures is every bit as good as the first, perhaps better, with even more in the way of radiant color and an added demon or two. Return visits are rewarded. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Smith)
★ MoMA PS1: ‘Frances Stark: My Best Thing’ (through April 30) “My Best Thing,” a 99-minute film that Los Angeles presented at the 2011 Venice Biennale, features digitally animated, childlike figures isolated on green-screen backgrounds. In computer-generated voices, they candidly converse about art, literature and sex to improbably engaging effect. 22-25 Jackson Avenue, at 46th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens, (718) 784-2084, momaps1.org. (Johnson)
★ Morgan Library Museum: ‘Dan Flavin: Drawing’ (through July 1) The artist Dan Flavin (1933-96) is so closely identified with his signature medium, the fluorescent light sculpture, that a show of his drawings is bound to surprise. And it’s particularly exciting to find that Flavin was not only a devoted draftsman but also a freewheeling polymath on paper. The Morgan’s show includes drawings from Flavin’s personal collection, which encompasses Hokusai, Mondrian and the Hudson River School and will completely change the way you see his art. 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street, (212) 685-0008, Ext. 560, themorgan.org. (Rosenberg)
★ Morgan Library Museum: ‘Rembrandt’s World: Dutch Drawings From the Clement C. Moore Collection’ (through April 29) You won’t see much of Rembrandt in this exhibition of about 90 works on paper, which includes just four drawings attributed to that master. What the show lacks in star power, though, it makes up for with a keen, all-encompassing look at life in the Dutch Republic during its Golden Age (which corresponds, roughly, to the 17th century). Seascapes assert naval dominance; genre scenes show bustling markets and tipsy taverngoers; botanical illustrations tell cautionary tales about economic speculation. 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street, (212) 685-0008, themorgan.org. (Rosenberg)
★ El Museo del Barrio: ‘Testimonios: 100 Years of Popular Expression’ (through May 6) The city’s premier museum of Latin culture explores its holdings in urban folk art, so-called handicraft and other forms of vernacular expression and comes up with visual gold. Among the kaleidoscopic displays are Puerto Rican santos and the winsome cellophane animals, birds and insects of Gregorio Marzán (1906-97). Splendid textiles include Haitian voodoo banners; densely appliquéd molas and the patchwork scenes called arpilleras, with which Chilean women kept hope alive for disappeared relatives during the regime of Augusto Pinochet. An intoxicating, if sometimes bittersweet, vitality is revealed. 1230 Fifth Avenue, at 104th Street, East Harlem, (212) 831-7272, elmuseo.org. (Smith)
Museum of Arts and Design: ‘Swept Away: Dust, Ashes, and Dirt in Contemporary Art and Design’ (through Aug. 12) From the department of unsolicited advice for aspiring artists: avoid dust, dirt, ashes, soot, smoke, sand, mud and lint, especially if you want to make a statement about life, death, history and the ephemerality of it all. The dangers are well-illustrated in this 25-artist show. While formally various, almost every piece trades on stereotypical associations with the entropic end to which we all are destined. 2 Columbus Circle, (212) 299-7777, madmuseum.org. (Johnson)
Museum of Modern Art: ‘Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration’ (through July 9) This entertaining little show includes five products of the Surrealist parlor game “exquisite corpse” and rustles up other examples of distorted or disjointed figuration from MoMA’s permanent collection. There’s much here to amuse, provoke and titillate, though the curators don’t include more performance-based forms of collaboration. (212) 708-9400, moma.org. (Rosenberg)
Museum of Modern Art: ‘Print/Out’ and ‘Printin’ ’ (through May 14) “Print/Out” presents printed works by 40 artists and artist groups from the museum’s permanent collection. Produced over the past two decades, most involve public modes of address borrowed from the worlds of advertizing and design and concepts promoting critical suspicion of mainstream media, culture and society. “Printin’,” a related print-focused exhibition, is full of surprises addressing multiple aspects of human experience. With fearless eclecticism, it ranges from a Krazy Kat cartoon by George Herriman to Puritan stocks cut from cardboard by Cady Noland. (212) 708-9400, moma.org. (Johnson)
Museum of Modern Art: ‘Diego Rivera: Murals for the Museum of Modern Art’ (through May 14) This show reunites five of the eight free-standing frescoes that Rivera made for a 1931-2 exhibition at MoMA. Some of these paintings seem ripped from current headlines. In “The Uprising,” protesting laborers are brutally suppressed by uniformed soldiers; the stratified New York cityscape of “Frozen Assets” tops a bank vault with a crowded homeless shelter. Timely as they are, they lack the multitudinous energy and narrative sweep of Rivera’s permanently sited murals. (212) 708-9400, moma.org. (Rosenberg)
Museum of Modern Art: ‘Cindy Sherman’ (through June 11) Aided by ever-shifting arrays of costumes, wigs, makeup, props, masks and prosthetic body parts, the leading light of postmodern photo-based art spent nearly four decades turning photography against itself, laying waste to a lexicon of mostly female stereotypes and exposing both the tyranny and the inner lives of the images of women that bombard and shape us all at every turn. This retrospective could have been larger, more clearly organized and less familiar, but its strengths, like the achievement it honors, are undeniable. (212) 708-9400, moma.org. (Smith)
★ Whitney Museum of American Art: ‘Whitney Biennial 2012’ (through May 27) With remarkable clarity of vision, striking spatial intelligence and a generous stylistic inclusiveness, one of the best Whitney Biennials in recent memory confidently weaves together art objects and time-based art — dance, theater and performance as well as film and video — on a scale unprecedented in New York. So doing, this especially poetic incarnation also reinvents the museum’s signature show and places future biennial curators in its debt, while offering the out-of-control, money-saturated art world a bit of redemption. Visit early and often. (212) 570-3600, whitney.org. (Smith)
Galleries: Chelsea
Douglas Huebler: ‘Crocodile Tears’ (through April 28) Works from the 1980s here revolve around a satiric screenplay about the art world called “Crocodile Tears,” which the pioneering Conceptualist Mr. Huebler wrote. Several plotlines having to do with money, power and ambition emerge from the mix of photographs, texts, drawings, comics and painted imitations of works by Cézanne, Mondrian and de Chirico. Sadly, the movie was never made. Paula Cooper Gallery, 521 West 21st Street, (212) 255-1105, paulacoopergallery.com. (Johnson)
‘Virginia Overton’ (through May 6) Made from detritus scavenged from the Kitchen’s basement, Ms. Overton’s Post-Minimalist sculptures generate an air of excruciatingly sophisticated decorum. On a squarish wall, a single, 17-foot-long pipe reaches diagonally from one corner to its opposite. Wedged between opposite walls, a set of eight, scuffed, white pedestals seems to levitate. The floor of one room is entirely covered by two-by-four scraps. Viewing these works is like browsing through an issue of Artforum magazine from about 1970. The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, (212) 255-5793, thekitchen.org. (Johnson)
Public Art
Josephine Meckseper: ‘Manhattan Oil Project’ (through May 6) Two pristine, full-size oil pumps seemingly toiling away in an empty lot of the theater district are intended to raise alarm about waste and the environment, but mainly they exemplify Surrealist cliché, highlight public sculpture’s all-too frequent role as light entertainment and — highlighted with red on black — are presentable enough to appear on the Broadway stage, perhaps in an update of “Oklahoma!” Eighth Avenue, at 46th Street, Clinton, (212) 966-0193, artproductionfund.org. (Smith)
Out of Town
★ ‘Colorful Realm: Japanese Bird-and-Flower Paintings by Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800)’ (through April 29) This miraculous exhibition presents for the first time outside of Japan all the pieces of a famous suite of scroll paintings that Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800) created for a monastery in Kyoto. Three representing enthroned Buddhist deities are comparatively dull, but the 30 depicting flowers, trees, birds, insects, seashells and much more are astoundingly beautiful. Formally virtuosic and magically realistic, they will leave you helplessly enchanted. National Gallery of Art, Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, (202) 737-4215, nga.gov. (Johnson)
Neuberger Museum of Art: ‘American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning, and Their Circle, 1927-1942’ (through April 29) This exhibition, organized by the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Mass., reunites the Four Musketeers of New York painting: John Graham, Arshile Gorky, Stuart Davis and Willem de Kooning. For a time — the 1930s, give or take a few years — these artists linked arms to defend modern American art against the dreariness and insularity of the Depression. One might see this show as an expansion of the first few galleries of the Museum of Modern Art’s recent de Kooning retrospective, with their eerie still lifes and fidgety figure paintings that seemed to collapse abstraction and representation. Purchase College, State University of New York, 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, N.Y., (914) 251-6100, neuberger.org. (Rosenberg)
★ Philadelphia Museum of Art: ‘Van Gogh Up Close’ (through May 6) Nature both inspired van Gogh’s extraordinary art and calmed his perpetually jangled nerves, and this modest yet groundbreaking show of 45 often small, unfamiliar canvases — devoted almost entirely to landscapes — examines his crucial connection to its bounty. The selection cuts a narrow, well-organized path through his art, examining the terrains he painted, the often close-up viewpoints he used and the shifting topographies of his paint textures, leading us to the fullness of his achievement along a fresh and eye-opening route. 26th Street at Benjamin Franklin Parkway, (215) 763-8100, philamuseum.org. (Smith)
Phillips Collection: ‘Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard’ (through May 6) The focus on Bonnard, Vuillard and a few other post-Impressionists — among the earliest adopters of the hand-held camera — brings some order to an unwieldy topic: the competitive relationship between painting and photography at the dawn of the 20th century. And throughout this exhibition’s more than 200 photographs and 70 paintings, prints and drawings press us to think about our own fast-changing photographic culture. (You wonder what these artists would have done with Instagram.) 1600 21st Street NW, Washington, (202) 387-2151, phillipscollection.org. (Rosenberg)
Last Chance
★ ‘The Brucennial 2012: Harderer. Betterer. Fasterer. Strongerer.’ (closes on Friday) Organized by the collective of anonymous artists known as the Bruce High Quality Foundation, this jampacked, multifloor exhibition displays paintings, sculptures, videos and more by close to 400 artists. A radically inclusive survey of what artists in New York really are doing outside the filtering systems of galleries, museums and curators, it is by turns exhilarating, numbing and depressing. Don’t miss it. 159 Bleecker Street, at Thompson Street, Greenwich Village, thebrucehighqualityfoundation.com. (Johnson)
★ The Cloisters: ‘The Game of Kings: Medieval Ivory Chessmen From the Isle of Lewis’ (closes on Sunday) In 1831, a farmer on the Isle of Lewis, the largest island of the Outer Hebrides, discovered a lost cache of medieval chess pieces. Today, thanks to “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” in which Harry and Ron play with magically animated replicas of them, the Lewis Chessmen are world famous. On tour from the British Museum, these adorable, bug-eyed little kings, queens, bishops, knights and warders, each beautifully carved from walrus ivory, are wonderful to examine up close. You don’t have to be a chess player or a Harry Potter fan to love them. 99 Margaret Corbin Drive, Fort Tryon Park, Washington Heights, (212) 923-3700, metmuseum.org. (Johnson)
‘Giverny’: E. V. Day and Kembra Pfahler (closes on Tuesday) Few have treated Monet’s garden at Giverny as irreverently as the sculptor E. V. Day and the performance artist Kembra Pfaler, known for her signature look: naked body painted in lurid colors, dominatrix boots, Kiss-style makeup and giant mass of teased black hair. Here, Ms. Day’s surreal photographs of Ms. Pfaler in costume posing against verdant backdrops at Giverny are displayed in an installation that replicates the garden in miniature, complete with grassy Astroturf, live flowers, gravel paths and a wooden bridge. The Hole Gallery, 312 Bowery, East Village, (212) 466-1100, theholenyc.com. (Johnson)
Paul Graham: ‘The Present’ (closes on Saturday) This latest series by the British photographer Paul Graham was shot entirely in high-traffic areas of Manhattan (Penn Station, Times Square and 125th Street, among others). Its 16 diptychs and 2 triptychs have a simple premise: They show two or three views of the same intersection, taken seconds apart and from more or less the same angle. People go out of focus or disappear entirely and are replaced by new pedestrians doing pretty much the same thing. Cabs speed by, cellphone conversations end, attentions are diverted and street photography is reinvented for an age of perpetual distraction. The Pace Gallery and Pace/MacGill, 545 West 22nd Street, Chelsea, (212) 989-4258, thepacegallery.com. (Rosenberg)
Oded Hirsch: ‘nothing new’ (closing on Sunday) In the mesmerizing video art of Oded Hirsch, who is now having his first solo exhibition in New York, the communal labors of the kibbutz become haunting performances. In the 10-minute “50 Blue” (2009), a young man struggles to push an older man in a wheelchair through a swampy landscape to an elevated viewing platform. And in “Tochka” (2010), men in blue shirts and white peasant hats cross a field and set to work on a mysterious construction project, which turns out to be a bridge to nowhere. Thierry Goldberg, 103 Norfolk Street, Lower East Side, (212) 967-2260, thierrygoldberg.com. (Rosenberg)
★ ‘Christiane Löhr’ (closes on Friday) In her debut, this German artist bends delicate stalks of grass into minuscule arbors, piles ivy seeds into topiary-like mounds and gathers thistle seeds and tree blossoms into luminous clouds. The results of this Minimalist naturalism may rank a little too high on the Fabergé scale of exquisite twee-ness, but their ephemeral modesty mitigates. At least momentarily, Ms. Lohr’s efforts can take your breath away — a good thing, too, because they could easily be blown over. Jason McCoy Gallery, 41 East 57th Street, (212) 319-1996, jasonmccoyinc.com. (Smith)
Michael Mahalchick: ‘It’ (closes on Sunday) Fashioned from all kinds of detritus and discarded whatnot, the assemblage wall pieces and sculptures here descend more from Edward Kienholz than Joseph Cornell and were purportedly put together in a performance on the show’s opening night. How much planning was involved is anyone’s guess, but the success rate varies tremendously. In some instances trash remains trash; in others, it is transformed into something more, and an almost devotional sense of deliberation shines through the veneer of superficial slovenliness. Canada, 55 Chrystie Street, near Canal Street, Lower East Side, (212) 925-4631, canadanewyork.com. (Smith)
Sam Moyer: ‘Slack Tide’ (closes on Sunday) Sam Moyer’s beguiling, expansive pictures oscillate astutely between the sublime and the decorative. Mounted on panels whose dimensions range from about 5 to 10 feet, they resemble much-enlarged, black-and-white, aerial photographs of mountainous topographies, possibly on another planet. They also are like giant, dark photocopies of profusely wrinkled bed sheets. But they are entirely made by hand. Rachel Uffner Gallery, 47 Orchard Street, near Hester Street, Lower East Side, (212) 274-0064, racheluffnergallery.com. (Johnson)
Museum of the City of New York: ‘Cecil Beaton: The New York Years’ (closes on Sunday) A British dandy in the Wildean mold, Beaton photographed fashion for Vogue and Vanity Fair; made photographic portraits of rich, famous and glamorous people; drew and painted cartoons, caricatures, fashion illustrations and theatrical sets with a deft hand; published six volumes of his diaries; and won two Oscars for his costume and set designs, for the Hollywood movies “Gigi” and “My Fair Lady.” He spent much time in New York, and this entertaining exhibition surveys what he did here during his five-decade career. Fifth Avenue, at 103rd Street, (212) 534-1672, mcny.org. (Johnson)
New Museum: ‘The Ungovernables: 2012 New Museum Triennial’ (closes on Sunday) The second edition of this survey of young talent, organized by Eungie Joo, is more international than the last one, with artists from Asia and South America and collectives from Africa and the Middle East. Much of the work is made up of small, light formal gestures, unemphatic in tone and socially engaged, though in an unperturbed way that accommodates friendliness and wit. 235 Bowery, at Prince Street, Lower East Side, (212) 219-1222, newmuseum.org. (Holland Cotter)
Noguchi Museum: ‘Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City’ (closes on Sunday) Several artists suggest their visions for the future of Long Island City, ranging from site-specific to silly. Natalie Jeremijenko’s “feral robots” sniff out pollutants in contaminated soil, and she suggests hula hoops filled with wildflower seeds. Rirkrit Tiravanija proposes growing “drivable” grass along a section of Broadway, and Mary Miss focuses on four giant smokestacks that tower over the area and imagines them as an eco-feedback center registering environmental changes visible to the community. 9-01 33rd Road, at Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, Queens, (718) 204-7088, noguchi.org. (Schwendener)
★ Philadelphia Museum of Art: ‘Zoe Strauss: Ten Years’ (closes on Sunday) In 2001 the artist Zoe Strauss came up with an unusual idea for an exhibition. It would take place under an elevated section of Interstate 95, in her home city, Philadelphia, and would consist of photographs mounted on the columns that supported the highway. It would be a recurring event, appearing yearly over a decade, and would be free and accessible to the public. That series, “I-95,” is at the core of “Zoe Strauss: Ten Years,” an engaging, parameter-expanding exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and on billboards around the city. In it, the highway links sweeping literary ambition and local interest, lyrical and documentary photography, portraiture and the urban landscape. Benjamin Franklin Parkway and 26th Street, (215) 763-8100, philamuseum.org. (Rosenberg)
‘The Spirit Level’ (closes on Saturday) This exhibition takes its title from the device used to ensure that paintings hang evenly on the wall, though its metaphysical wordplay is clear from the outset. Spectral Madonnas painted by the self-taught Swiss artist Hans Schärer (1927-97) guard the foyer of the gallery’s 21st Street branch, closing ranks around the viewer. The work at 24th Street is no less spellbinding (though the installation grows dense in places) and includes Ann Craven’s paintings of the moon, limned with spiraling strokes of a wide brush, and a phalanx of polymorphous, silver-glazed ceramic vessels by Andrew Lord. Gladstone Gallery, 515 West 24th Street and 530 West 21st Street, Chelsea, (212) 206-9300, gladstonegallery.com. (Rosenberg)
Frances Stark: ‘Osservate, Leggete Con Me’ (closes on Saturday) Conversations about art, movies, literature, philosophy and sex and expressions of excitement accompanying simultaneous masturbation — all transcribed from Skype dialogues between Ms. Stark and anonymous Italian men — are video projected in two separate rooms, as lines of text accompanied by music. Prepare to be teased. Gavin Brown, 620 Greenwich Street, at Leroy Street, West Village, (212) 627-5258, gavinbrown.biz. (Johnson)
