In Museums - November 30, 2009

AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM: ‘THOMAS CHAMBERS (1808-1869): AMERICAN MARINE AND LANDSCAPE PAINTER,’ through March 7. With this extraordinary show, a star is born, or rediscovered, or at least given a big museum survey for the first time since 1942. Chambers painted typical 19th-century fare — Hudson River landscapes and marine views of ships, harbors and naval battles — in an entrancing, slightly demonic style that was neither strictly realist nor naïve. His paintings are like chorus lines singing and dancing their hearts out, ever so slightly off key and out of step. They amplify the understanding of the visual appetite by satisfying it so thoroughly. Chambers may have been the first American artist to have grasped — as Cézanne and Seurat would — the implicitly geometric nature of reality. It makes sense that even in 1942 he was called “America’s first modern.” 45 West 53rd Street, Manhattan , (212) 265-1040, folkartmuseum.org. (Roberta Smith)

BROOKLYN MUSEUM: PATRICIA CRONIN: ‘HARRIET HOSMER, LOST AND FOUND,’ through Jan. 24. The contemporary New York artist Patricia Cronin channels the life and art of the 19th-century American sculptor Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908) in a show of watercolor depictions of Hosmer’s works, both those that survived and those no longer traceable. Ms. Cronin has also published the watercolors — including her ghost images of missing works — in a scholarly book that stands as a Hosmer catalogue raisonné. The result is a complex package: a total work of art that is a historical document of the careers of two artists and a homage by one woman to another. 200 Eastern Parkway, at Prospect Park , (718) 638-5000, brooklynmuseum.org. (Holland Cotter)

BROOKLYN MUSEUM: ‘REFLECTIONS ON THE ELECTRIC MIRROR: NEW FEMINIST VIDEO,’ through Jan. 10. Q: What is feminist video? A: A good way to reduce overcrowding in museums. Unless, that is, you are referring to this entertaining exhibition of recent videos by nine artists featuring the creators themselves as performers. Works by Klara Liden, Kate Gilmore, Cathy Begien and the team of Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn are variously funny, dark and poetic. Starring in antique-looking, silent-movie-style commercials, Shannon Plumb is a wonderfully agile physical comedian. 200 Eastern Parkway, at Prospect Park , (718) 638-5000, brooklynmuseum.org. (Ken Johnson)

BROOKLYN MUSEUM: ‘WHO SHOT ROCK & ROLL: A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY, 1955 TO THE PRESENT,’ through Jan. 31. This entertaining exhibition presents more than 175 images of rock stars by 105 photographers. It includes album cover art, candid snapshots, publicity portraits and pictures of live performances. The downside is that only a few photographs rise to the level of fine art, and the general focus is on only the most famous and familiar musicians, from Elvis Presley to Kurt Cobain. There are some nice surprises, though, like a small Polaroid of Courtney Love on which she wrote a rude salutation. 200 Eastern Parkway, at Prospect Park , (718) 638-5000, brooklynmuseum.org. (Johnson)

FRICK COLLECTION: ‘WATTEAU TO DEGAS: FRENCH DRAWINGS FROM THE FRITS LUGT COLLECTION,’ through Jan. 10. Ranging from Watteau and Fragonard to Ingres and Degas, 64 works from a celebrated Parisian repository offer a gratifying immersion in 18th- and 19th-century French draftsmanship. For urbanity, vivacity and technical merit, these artists remain in a league of their own. 1 East 70th Street, at Fifth Avenue , (212) 288-0700, frick.org. (Johnson)

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM: ‘KANDINSKY,’ through Jan. 13. The Guggenheim is not exactly thinking outside the spiral with this sleek retrospective, but then the pioneering abstractionist Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) is more than just its foundational artist. He is the angel in the architecture. His swirling, unanchored abstractions are implicit in Frank Lloyd Wright’s great circling rotunda, and now they fill it, bottom to top — a sensational sight that is as much Kandinsky-Wright reunion as retrospective. One of the fullest, clearest views of Kandinsky’s achievement in decades, it certainly unmoors the conventional wisdom of precipitous decline after 1921, if not 1914. 1071 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street , (212) 423-3500, guggenheim.org. (Smith)

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM: ‘ANISH KAPOOR,’ through March 28. This exhibition by the celebrated British sculptor consists of just one work, but it’s a doozy. Viewable only from three partial perspectives, “Memory” is an enormous, egg-shaped volume of Cor-Ten steel, wedged into a boxy side gallery like a dirigible that drifted off course and got stuck. One approach offers only a square window allowing you to behold the impenetrable, seemingly infinite darkness inside. Call it a womb with a view. 1071 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street , (212) 423-3500, guggenheim.org. (Johnson)

JAPAN SOCIETY: ‘SERIZAWA: MASTER OF JAPANESE TEXTILE DESIGN,’ through Jan. 17. Serizawa Keisuke (1895-1984), one of the most prominent Japanese artisans of the 20th century, transformed paper and fabric with intricate, hand-cut stencils. His art updated, and some might say elevated, centuries-old crafts with allusions to Korean folk art, Chinese calligraphy, Aesop’s Fables, Indian miniatures and Western midcentury Modernism. This handsomely installed show includes an early artist’s-book adaptation of “Don Quixote,” as well as curtains, screens and kimonos from Serizawa’s mature and productive postwar years. 333 East 47th Street, Manhattan , (212) 832-1155, japansociety.org. (Karen Rosenberg)

★ METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: ‘AMERICAN STORIES: PAINTINGS OF EVERYDAY LIFE, 1765-1915,’ through Jan. 24. This exhibition of 103 figurative paintings and portraits that the museum justifiably calls “iconic” spans the Colonial period to World War I, touching on issues like the settling of the West and the Civil War and its legacy. Many of the works are masterpieces by artists like John Singleton Copley, George Caleb Bingham, William Sidney Mount, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt and George Bellows that will in all likelihood not be gathered together anytime soon. Others are little-known gems of genre painting; many more are less gemlike genre works full of plots, props and stilted emotions. The result is refreshingly evenhanded. Art historical viewpoints previously too often considered mutually exclusive — pro-narrative versus pro-form — are synthesized. The paintings benefit tremendously from the mix, as will your understanding of American art and history. A thrilling, illuminating show. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Smith)

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: ‘ART OF THE SAMURAI: JAPANESE ARMS AND ARMOR, 1156-1868,’ through Jan. 10. This sumptuous exhibition alternates between extraordinarily gorgeous, intricately wrought suits of armor that count as some of the world’s greatest works of multimedia art and an unprecedented gathering of some 60 bare sword blades whose Minimalist subtleties of line, proportion and surface form a show within a show. In between are amazing helmets; ornate sword mountings and fittings; scroll paintings of samurai dressed to kill; and the colorful surcoats they traditionally wore over their armor. Nearly all of the 200-plus works come from Japan’s museums; about half have been designated National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties by the Japanese government. Because of their extreme fragility, not all objects will be on view at once: about 60 pieces will be replaced by similar objects of equal caliber during the first week in December. Visit early and often. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Smith)

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: ‘LOOKING IN: ROBERT FRANK’S “THE AMERICANS,”’ through Jan. 3. In the mid-1950s the Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank made three long car trips from New York City across the United States, through the Deep South to California, and back again by a northern route, taking thousands of pictures as he went. He needed a year to develop, print and edit them down to the 83 that made up his classic book, “The Americans,” which was panned for its pessimism in his day, and sanctified for its political prescience since. The Met show, and the huge book that accompany it, are basically monuments to that monument. If “The Americans” looks more formulaic in its sentiments than it did 50 years, that is because it has had so many imitators and the country it captured has changed. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Cotter)

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: ‘TIBETAN ARMS AND ARMOR FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION,’ through fall 2010. The paradox of militant Buddhism inspired the Metropolitan’s fascinating 2006 exhibition “Warriors of the Himalayas: Rediscovering the Arms and Armor of Tibet.” Now Donald LaRocca, the museum’s arms and armor curator, has created a follow-up installation of 35 objects from the Met’s collection (including 5 acquired in 2007). This time the focus is on defense rather than offense: examples of horse and body armor, dating from the 15th through the 20th centuries, outnumber swords, guns and spears. Most of these objects have seen more ceremonial than military action. All of them equate supreme craftsmanship with defense of the body and Buddhist principles. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Rosenberg)

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: ‘VERMEER’S MASTERPIECE “THE MILKMAID,” ’ through Nov. 29. This small contextual show surrounds “The Milkmaid” (1657-58) with all five of the Met’s Vermeers and a smattering of domestic scenes by other 17th-century masters, among them Pieter de Hooch, Gabriel Metsu and Nicolaes Maes. The 18-inch-high “Milkmaid” is one of Vermeer’s strangest and best works. In this arresting treatment of a prosaic subject — a young woman laboring in the kitchen — Vermeer forsakes his well-known optical sensations for earthier pleasures. And in unprecedented fashion, he endows this domestic worker with traits typically reserved for higher-class women: virtue, diligence and a rich interior life. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Rosenberg)

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: ’WATTEAU, MUSIC, AND THEATER,’ through Nov. 29. Informed by new research in music and theater, this show highlights the influence of the performing arts on paintings, drawings and prints by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) and his contemporaries. It includes several elaborate fêtes galantes and smaller works depicting actors and musicians, and cultivates an atmosphere of civilized hedonism. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Rosenberg)

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: ‘YOUNG ARCHER,’ continuing. Is it or is it not? “Young Archer,” a life-size marble carving of a naked boy drawing an arrow from his lion’s paw quiver might be the earliest known sculpture by Michelangelo. Scholars disagree. On a 10-year loan from France, the legless, armless boy with a yearning expression is in the Met’s bright and airy Velez Blanco Patio, where viewers may decide for themselves if it is the real thing. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Johnson)

★ METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: ‘CINNABAR: THE CHINESE ART OF CARVED LACQUER,’ through Feb. 21. The exhibition’s approximately 50 carved lacquer dishes, platters, boxes, vases and other domestic objects — including a spectacular folding screen — are as engrossing for their formal beauty as for their amazing craftsmanship. The pigment cinnabar gives them a rich, dark red color, and intricate patterns, ornamental animals and pastoral vignettes carved and incised into their lustrous surfaces make every object a pleasure to behold. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Johnson)

★ METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: ‘ROXY PAINE ON THE ROOF: MAELSTROM,’ through Nov. 29. An awesome spectacle awaits visitors to the museum’s roof garden: a gnarly thicket of trees and branches extending from one end of the open-air deck to the other. It looks as if a tornado had ripped through Central Park and deposited its gleanings here — except that it is all made of shiny metal pipe, as if all that wood had been transformed by someone with a stainless-steel Midas touch. (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Johnson)

MONTCLAIR ART MUSEUM: ‘CÉZANNE AND AMERICAN MODERNISM,’ through Jan. 3. Including early works by Dove, Hartley, Gorky and more than 25 others, this fascinating show explores the art history-changing influence of Cézanne on American artists between 1907 and 1930. Nothing by the American artists looks as good as any of the 18 Cézannes on view, but the exhibition and its hefty, richly informative catalog are revelatory. 3 South Mountain Avenue, Montclair, N.J. , (973) 746-5555, montclairartmuseum.org. (Johnson)

MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM: ’ROCOCO AND REVOLUTION: EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH DRAWINGS,’ through Jan. 3. The art of drawing does not get much better than this. The nearly 80 works selected from the Morgan’s own collection include excellent pieces by most of the era’s best-known artists, from the Rococoists Watteau and Fragonard to Neo-Classicists like Jacques-Louis David and Étienne Louis Boullée. 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street , (212) 685-0008, themorgan.org. (Johnson)

MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM: ‘WILLIAM BLAKE’S WORLD: “A NEW HEAVEN IS BEGUN,” ’ through Jan. 3. Artist, poet and irritated ecstatic, William Blake listed as his primary residence the Imagination, a combination of creative command post and psychological refuge where, as he put it, the eternal and the real meet. You’ll see a good amount of both in this show, drawn from the Morgan’s deep holdings of Blake’s hand-printed-and-painted books and from the entire series of 21 watercolor illustrations he made for “The Book of Job.” 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street , (212) 685-0008, themorgan.org. (Cotter)

EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO: ‘NEXUS NEW YORK: LATIN/AMERICAN ARTISTS IN THE MODERN METROPOLIS,’ through Feb. 28. A bright light at the top of Museum Mile, the city’s premier Latino art center has reopened after a makeover with a dense, episodic and absorbing visual history of the Latino art presence in New York in the first half of the 20th century. As much an archival display as a standard art show, it focuses on luminous, culture-changing personalities, from the Mexican-born art impresario Marius de Zayas, who teamed up with Alfred Stieglitz to bring the first Picasso show to New York; to Joaquín Torres-García, a Uruguayan who arrived here in 1920 and saw proto-Pop Art everywhere; to the Chilean Roberto Matta, who served as a dynamic agent for Old World Surrealism in the New World. In addition, El Museo now has its first permanent-collection gallery, with an installation, “Voces y Visiones,” that reaffirms historical connections to the nearby East Harlem neighborhood. 1230 Fifth Avenue, at 104th Street, East Harlem , (212) 831-7272, elmuseo.org. (Cotter)

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART: ‘COMPASS IN HAND: SELECTIONS FROM THE JUDITH ROTHSCHILD FOUNDATION CONTEMPORARY DRAWINGS COLLECTION,’ through Jan. 4. The Modern’s largest gift of drawings — a windfall of 2,500 works by 650 artists — started out as a kind of stunt and matured without becoming a triumph. Initially a yearlong shopping binge in pursuit of a “cross section” of drawing at a certain moment, it also tried to fill decades-old gaps in the Modern’s drawing collection, often with works by familiar names. These dominate the sampling of the gift: a lackluster exhibition of 354 works by 177 artists that emphasizes the Modern’s ambivalence about moving beyond the Minimalism/Post-Minimalist canon, and its tendency to pick big or hot names over truly great drawings. The bottom line? Connoisseurship matters. (212) 708-9400, moma.org. (Smith)

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART: ‘WHAT WAS GOOD DESIGN? MOMA’S MESSAGE, 1944-1956,’ through Nov. 30. With 102 objects and excellent labels, the Modern explores its role as arbiter of postwar American design, when, channeling the Bauhaus, it deemed good, affordable design a human right. Its campaign included exhibitions titled “What Is Good Design?,” design competitions and use of the MoMA seal of approval by selected department stores. Signature items like the Eames storage unit and the Chemex coffee maker mingle with surprises like a back-to-basics chair of string and wood by, of all people, Alexey Brodovitch, Harper’s Bazaar’s influential art director. The prevailing sense of beauty, restraint and economy is an implicit rebuke to today’s inane material excesses. (212) 708-9400, moma.org. (Smith)

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART: ‘MONET’S WATER LILIES,’ through April 12. Devotees of late Monet can rejoice. The Museum of Modern Art has hung its three “Water Lilies” together for the first time since 2001, along with a relatively recent acquisition and two guests. That’s six waterlily paintings, all completed in the last dozen years before the artist’s death in 1926. In addition, these canvases are isolated from the onward march of Modernism according to MoMA, and their separateness emphasizes their meditative, immersive quality. But it also confirms their radical achievement. While bringing Monet’s Impressionism to a grand conclusion, they also open the path to Abstract Expressionism. It can still stop you in your tracks. (212) 708-9400, moma.org. (Smith)

NEUE GALERIE: ‘FROM KLIMT TO KLEE: MASTERWORKS FROM THE SERGE SABARSKY COLLECTION,’ through Feb. 15. Serge Sabarsky, the art dealer and collector who founded the Neue Galerie with Ronald S. Lauder, never lived to see its 2001 opening. Most visitors to the museum know Mr. Sabarsky (1912-96) primarily through some of the Klimts and Schieles that rotate through the galleries and from the popular first-floor cafe that bears his name. They’ll be better acquainted with him after a visit to this exhibition, the first at the Neue Galerie to focus exclusively on Mr. Sabarsky’s acquisitions. The high point, for many viewers, will be the small second-floor room of drawings by Klimt, Schiele, Alfred Kubin and Oskar Kokoschka. 1048 Fifth Avenue, at 86th Street , (212) 628-6200, neuegalerie.org. (Rosenberg)

★ NEW MUSEUM: ‘URS FISCHER: MARGUERITE DE PONTY,’ through Feb. 7. Naming his first American museum show after a fictional character from Mallarmé, the young Swiss sculptor Urs Fischer spreads himself thin, but brilliantly. Admirers of his gaping holes in walls may be disappointed by the sparseness, quiet and subtlety, but for the most part — despite too much Surrealism 101 — Mr. Fischer’s neo-Dada formalism wins out. Nose-thumbing irreverence colludes with Minimalist space, scale and perception. Take this three-floor show from the top and watch worlds collide: abstraction, found objects and trompe l’oeil; the actual-size, the large and the enlarged; images, reflections and volumes. Each floor is a kind of implosion, although it only becomes obvious on the lowest. The perpetual twilight in the middle may be the most memorable moment. 235 Bowery, at Prince Street, Lower East Side , (212) 219-1222, newmuseum.org. (Smith)

NOGUCHI MUSEUM: ‘NOGUCHI REINSTALLED,’ through Oct. 24, 2010. In anticipation of the museum’s 25th anniversary in 2010, this show presents about 200 of Isamu Noguchi’s works from the 1920s to the 1980s. They include sculptures in stone, wood, metal and clay; maquettes and models for parks and playgrounds; and props for Martha Graham dance productions. Though unfailingly suave, Noguchi’s polished abstraction no longer has the urgency it once had, but the museum as a whole is a wonderful time capsule, and the sculpture garden he designed is utterly blissful. Noguchi Museum, 9-01 33rd Road, at Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, Queens , (718) 204-7088, noguchi.org. (Johnson)

P.S. 1 CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER: ‘LEANDRO ERLICH: SWIMMING POOL,’ through March 1. From P.S. 1’s first-floor hallway you step onto a wooden deck that surrounds a small, fully equipped swimming pool. Glowing lights built into the aqua walls light up watery depths below the gently churning surface. A flight of stairs leads to a lower level and a magical surprise. 22-25 Jackson Avenue, at 46th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens , (718) 784-2084, ps1.org. (Johnson)

SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN: ‘A SONG FOR THE HORSE NATION,’ through July 7. Including saddles, riding blankets, clothing and beaded bags and much more, this exhibition brings to light a fascinating and ultimately sad chapter in American history: the hundred-year period during which horses were central to the lives of the Plains Indians. A highly efficient form of transportation, horses enabled Navaho, Crow, Comanchee, Pawnee and others to expand their territories and flourish more than they otherwise would have. It also enabled them to make war more effectively, though ultimately not effectively enough. George Gustav Heye Center, 1 Bowling Green, Lower Manhattan , (212) 514-3700, americanindian.si.edu. (Johnson)

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART: ‘GEORGIA O’KEEFFE: ABSTRACTION,’ through Jan. 17. The focus of this surprisingly surprising show is the first two decades of O’Keeffe’s long career, beginning in 1915 when she made her first abstract drawings, which were also among the first fully abstract images by any American artist, and continuing into the 1930s, when she was spending increasing amounts of time alone in New Mexico. In between comes a body of bold, graphically punchy and sensuous painting that you tend to experience whole and fast, as you do a strong scent or a touch. (212) 570-3600, whitney.org. (Cotter)

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART : ‘RONI HORN A K A RONI HORN,’ through Jan. 24. Two floors is one floor too many for this late-phase Post-Minimalist. She is best represented here by some exquisite cast-glass sculptures, photographs of Iceland’s extraordinary topography and several large drawings that combine aspects of carving, cartography and quilting. The catalog is even more elaborately stage-managed; the main take-away from the combination is that Ms. Horn’s ostensibly androgynous (but actually butch) persona is her most engaging creation and that self-portraiture and language are her truest modes of expression. (212) 570-3600, whitney.org. (Smith)

YALE CENTER FOR BRITISH ART: ‘MRS. DELANY AND HER CIRCLE,’ through Jan. 3. This fascinating show celebrates the contributions of the exemplary 18th-century Englishwoman Mary Delany to botany, the decorative arts and English court society. A widow twice over with no children, Mrs. Delany thrived in middle and old age as a naturalist, amateur artist and close friend to Handel, Jonathan Swift and the Duchess of Portland, among others. The exhibition includes her drawings, silhouettes and floral embroidery, and a selection from the “Flora Delanica”: a series of some 1,000 botanical collages, begun when she was 72. 1080 Chapel Street, New Haven , (203) 432-2800, yale.edu/ycba. (Rosenberg)

Galleries: Chelsea

MATTHEW RITCHIE: ‘LINE SHOT,’ through Dec. 2. It is hard to know if this artist is a genuine polymath or an ambivalent painter, unwilling to commit to his medium. The canvases in his latest New York gallery show are some of the best of his career. More abstract, they have a cosmic turbulence that is less obscurely narrative, more affectingly formal. His videos continue to impress, especially when used as stage sets; his sculptures increasingly just get in the way. It may be unnecessary, if not self-defeating, to show the different mediums together. Andrea Rosen Gallery, 525 West 24th Street , (212) 627-6000, andrearosengallery.com. (Smith)

Galleries: Other

BARRY X. BALL: ‘MASTERPIECES,’ through Dec. 12. A striking departure from the surrealistic heads for which Mr. Ball is known, this show replicates three Italian Late Baroque busts in different kinds of exotic stone using a combination of high-tech machinery and manual labor. Two glowing pieces represent “Purity” by Antonio Corradini, an image of a woman whose head and face are covered by a sheer veil. The third, based on “Envy” by Orazio Marinali, is a snarling, snake-haired Medusa. Salon 94 Freemans, 1 Freeman Alley , (212) 529-7400, salon94.com. (Johnson)

‘ICONS OF THE DESERT: EARLY ABORIGINAL PAINTINGS FROM PAPUNYA,’ through Dec. 5. With their bold, diagrammatic compositions; finely coordinated colors; and dotted textures, paintings by indigenous Australians appeal to Western eyes trained to respond to abstraction and folk and so-called outsider art. The paintings in this excellent show are mostly from the 1970s, the early years of the modern Aboriginal painting movement. Grey Art Gallery, New York University, 100 Washington Square East, Greenwich Village , (212) 998-6780, nyu.edu/greyart. (Johnson)

MIKE KELLEY AND MICHAEL SMITH: ‘A VOYAGE OF GROWTH AND DISCOVERY,’ through Nov. 30. This entertaining and thought-provoking exhibition features a six-channel video following Michael Smith, dressed as Baby Ikki in droopy diapers, bonnet and dark glasses, as he wanders around Burning Man, the weeklong celebration of all things psychedelic in the Nevada desert. With jungle-gym-like structures in the gallery and a towering junk-metal sculpture of Baby Ikki looming over all, the whole project represents Burning Man as a festival of infantilism. SculptureCenter, 44-19 Purves Street, Long Island City, Queens , (718) 361-1750, sculpture-center.org. (Johnson