(Francis Picabia) The ole Dada master was probably the best “bad” painter ever. Today’s postmodernists love the guy. At the Arts Club of Chicago, you’ll see why it feels so good to stop looking at his pictures. (Sept.)
(Damien Hirst) The Brit pickled-shark artist who started the whole “Sensation” phenomenon gets his first New York show in four years at the Gagosian Gallery. A 20-foot anatomy dummy is this year’s sliced cow. (Sept.)
(Ultra Baroque) If Latin pop is hot, can Latin art be far behind? Not in this huge survey of what’s up in Latin America–and with Latino artists in the U.S.–at MOCA, San Diego. (Sept.)
(Edward Steichen) A Whitney Museum retrospective of the pioneer photographer who produced everything from a murky, menacing portrait of Rodin with his famous sculpture “The Thinker” to high-priced commercial work for Conde Nast. (Oct.)
(Presidential Portraits) From Rembrandt Peale’s painting of George Washington to Chuck Close’s photorealist rendition of Bill Clinton, at–of all places–the Bush Library in College Station, Texas. Wait a minute, do we hear a certain son shouting from the wings, “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Wyeth”? (Oct.)
(Art Nouveau) All that swirly, turn-of-the-century mysticism poured into Paris Metro entrances, Tiffany glass and Viennese silverware. Take the spouse to the show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and you’ll get fine-art points for a day of fantasy shopping. (Oct.)
(Mel Chin) One of the livelier installation artists will turn New York’s Frederieke Taylor gallery into a mock penny arcade. In other words, the whole contemporary art world writ small. (Oct.)
(Yoko Ono) Before she was John Lennon’s widow, Yoko was an early conceptual artist. This Japan Society retrospective in New York will tell us whether she was a real heavyweight or just a gadfly. (Oct.)
(Hugo Boss Prize) An art Oscar for avant-gardists handed out by the Guggenheim Museum in New York, this biennial bundle of $50,000 was won first in 1996 by Matthew Barney and then in 1998 by Scot Douglas Gordon. That makes two males from the British-American establishment in a row. So we’re betting on either (among the seven finalists for 2000) Slovenian installation artist Marjetica Potrc or the Brazilian sculptor Tunga. (Nov.)
(Guitar Design) The official title of this exhibition of instruments from the Renaissance to rock, at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, has the phrase “dangerous curves” in it. That’s a bad sign. But guitars are cool enough to overcome anything. Let’s hear it for a great big windmill crraannggg! (Nov.)
