NEW THIS MONTH
IN U.S. MUSEUMS

Dec. 3, 2011-Mar. 11, 2012
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Australian artists' first U.S. exhibition, commissioned especially for the museum's NOW series, takes over two galleries with an installation evoking the bedroom of an astronaut, whose reflective floor covering references the final sequence from Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a series of large-scale wall works constructed from Legos
Curator: Evelyn S. Nef
Funding: Embassy of Australia, Washington, D.C.

Dec. 9, 2011-Apr. 3, 2012
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The four most recent recipients of the SECA Award, which awards contemporary Bay Area artists with an exhibition, catalogue and modest cash prize, celebrate the award’s 50th anniversary with a presentation of their film installations, collages, weavings, works on paper and paintings
Curators: Apsara DiQuinzio, Tanya Zimbardo
Catalogue: $9.95
Funding: SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art), Graue Family Foundation
Also on view: “Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards,” Dec. 9, 2011-Apr. 3, 2012

Dec. 9, 2011-July 1, 2012
Seattle Art Museum
The 2012 Armory Show artist (b. 1973) and recipient of the 2011-2012 biannual Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Fellowship presents an interactive installation space organized around 4,000 vinyl records that he reclaimed from the former Dr. Wax store in Chicago, featuring a live DJ station with monthly “listening parties” and a self-service record player that visitors are invited to play themselves
Curator: Sandra Jackson-Dumont
Funding: Annual Fund, Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Endowment

Dec. 13, 2011-Mar. 11, 2012
Art Institute of Chicago
The first museum exhibition to examine the role photography played in the development of Conceptual Art during these pivotal years unites more than 140 works by 57 artists, some of whom, unlike the Pop artists, produced their own photographs as opposed to using found images, including Ed Ruscha, Bruce Nauman, Mel Bochner, Michael Heizer and Gordon Matta-Clark, as well as work from the Italian movement, Arte Povera
Curator: Matthew S. Witkovsky
Catalogue: 288 pp., $60
Funding: Terra Foundation for American Art, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, others

Dec. 14, 2011-Feb. 5, 2012
New Museum
A multipart project examining issues relevant to contemporary art practice and politics in Lebanon, including an exhibition of eight works in photo, video, text and sculpture, the Beirut Art Center’s Mediatheque, installed in the museum’s Resource Center, and a series of public performances and screenings
Curators: Sandra Dagher, Lamia Joreige
Funding: Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Laurie Wolfert, others

Dec. 16, 2011-Feb. 26, 2012
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Nevada-born, New York-based artist’s Houston debut, a Core Exhibition Program presentation at the Glassell School of Art, features a 16-mm color film projection screened within an installation made to look like a storage unit, as well as a survey of ten additional works made since 2000
Curators: Mary Leclère, Yasufumi Nakamori
Catalogue: Core Program, details forthcoming
Funding: Karen Pulaski Tyrell, Joan and Stanford Alexander, Leslie and Brad Bucher, The Joseph and Sylvia Slifka Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation, others

Dec. 17, 2011-Deb. 5, 2012
Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art
A collection of ten gowns by the American design duo, inspired by Fra Angelico’s Renaissance frescoes (ca. 1350-1455) and unveiled in June 2011 as a site-specific installation at Pitti W in Florence, Italy, are displayed in the museum’s Italian Renaissance gallery, surrounded by classic Renaissance paintings
Curator: Sharon S. Takeda
Catalogue: Rodarte, Catherine Opie, Alec Soth, JRP/Ringier, 178 pp., $80
Funding: Maria Arena Bell, Susan Casden, Eva Chow, DNA Boutique, Allison Sarofim, Karyn Silver, others

Dec. 18, 2011-Mar. 26, 2012
Museum of Modern Art, New York
The first U.S. museum exhibition of the pioneering Croatian video artist (b. 1949), part of the generation known as the Nova Umjetnicka Praska (New Art Practice), features a historic grouping of her videos and media installations, many made during the period in the early ‘70s dubbed the Croatian Spring, as well as 100 of her iconic photomontages
Curator: Roxana Marcoci
Catalogue: 192 pp., $50
Funding: Wallis Annenberg Foundation, David Teiger, The Modern Woman’s Fund, others

Dec. 20, 2011-May 6, 2012
J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center
Part of the museum’s ongoing PST initiative, the exhibition features photographs from the permanent collection which present “memorable images” of Los Angeles, grouped around the themes of experimentation, street photography, architectural depictions, and the film and entertainment industry, by artists including Jo Ann Callis, Judy Fiskin, Robert Heinecken, Man Ray, Garry Winogrand and others
Curator: Virginia Heckert
Also on view: “Gothic Grandeur: Manuscript Illumination, 1200-1350,” Dec. 13, 2011-May 13, 2012

Dec. 24, 2011-Mar. 18, 2012
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
The first travelling show of Wertheimer’s photographs, printed anew by David Adamson for the exhibition, presents fifty-six 1956 photographs of Elvis Presley on the brink of superstardom
Curator: Robin Nicholson
Catalogue: Welcome Books, 128 pp., $29.95,
Tour: Developed collaboratively by the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, and Govinda Gallery, The VMFA is the exhibition’s last stop on a nationwide tour that began in 2010
Funding: HISTORY, the History Channel