National Academy Museum
Oct. 2, 2008-Jan. 4, 2009
More than 40 works by the self-taught visionary landscape painter Ralph Albert Blakelock (1847-1919), who traveled through the American West, Mexico and the Caribbean before suffering a mental collapse and being hospitalized in New York for the last 20 years of his life, when he became known as the "mad genius" 
Curators: Norman Geske, Daniel A. Siedell, Bruce Weber
Catalogue: 80 pp., $24.95
Tour: The exhibition was organized by the Sheldon Museum of Art, where it premiered
Also opening: "George Tooker: A Retrospective," Oct. 2, 2008-Jan. 4, 2009

Brooklyn Museum
Oct. 3, 2008-Jan. 11, 2009
The final showing of the retrospective organized by the Tate in London in collaboration with the artists presents more than 90 pictures made since 1970
Curators: Jan Debbaut, Ben Borthwick
Catalogue: Gilbert & George: Complete Pictures, Aperture, two volumes, 1,200 pages, $89.95
Tour: The show has appeared at museums in San Francisco, Milwaukee, Turin and Munich as well as in London
Funding: Altria Group, Inc., others

Museum of the City of New York
Oct. 3, 2008-Feb. 22, 2009
For New York, Paris was an emblem of chic, while for Paris, New York represented modernity -- a dynamic explored through designs for ballets, fashion, city buildings, furniture, murals, menus and jewelry
Curator: Donald Albrecht
Catalogue: Monacelli Press / Random House, 240 pp., $50
Funding: Florence Gould Foundation, Van Cleef & Arpels, Elle and Elle Décor, others

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
Oct. 3, 2008-Apr. 5, 2009
Showcasing an affordable housing project -- incorporating 245 apartment units, a dorm, a small hotel, a gym, a library, and shops and public spaces -- being built in the city of Guangzhou by the Chinese architectural firm Urbanus
Funding: New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency, Tishman Speyer, others

Oakland Museum
Oct. 4, 2008-Mar. 8, 2009
A survey of 60 works by 11 artists from the Los Angeles area, including Linda Stark, Brian Fahlstrom, Steve Galloway, Loren Holland, Hyesook Park, Steve Roden, Don Suggs, Esther Pearl Watson, Robert Williams, and Armando Lerma and Carlos Ramirez (who collaborate as the Date Farmers)
Curator: Philip Linhares

Carnegie Museum of Art
Oct. 4, 2008-Jan. 18, 2009
Imagining suburbia -- houses, malls and car culture -- via more than 100 paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos and architectural models by 33 artists and architects
Curators: Tracy Myers, Andrew Blauvelt
Catalogue: 336 pp., $34.95, with essays by David Brooks, Malcolm Gladwell, others

Japan Society
Oct. 4, 2008-Jan. 11, 2009
Almost 90 non-functional bamboo works by 23 artists, including a large-scale commission for the building lobby by Kawana Tetsunori and an installation of a series of works by the society’s waterfall by the American artist Stephen Talasnik
Curator: Joe Earle
Catalogue: Yale, 128 pp., $25

New Museum of Contemporary Art
Oct. 8, 2008-Jan. 11, 2009
100 works made since 1993 by the New York painter whose intimate portraits depict her friends as well as artists and media stars
Curator: Laura Hoptman
Catalogue: Phaidon, 224 pp., $59.95, with essays by Iwona Blazwick, John Giorno, others
Tour: Walker Art Center; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; Bonnefantenmjuseum, Maastricht
Funding: Banana Republic

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
Oct. 10, 2008-Jan. 4, 2009
The first major museum survey of work by the recent MacArthur Foundation Award winner presents 17 sculptures and installations from the past decade, including the mist-like Nebulous, made entirely of transparent tape, and Bluffs, a series of teetering stacks of buttons
Curators: Nicholas Baume, Jen Mergel
Catalogue: Monacelli Press / Random House, 160 pp., $45
Tour: Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati, Feb. 7-May 11, 2009; Des Moines Art Center, June 19-Sept. 13, 2009; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Oct. 10, 2009-Jan. 16, 2010
Funding: Chuck and Kate Brizius and Barbara Lee

MIT List Visual Arts Center
Oct. 11, 2008-Jan. 4, 2009
A "mini-retrospective" focusing on the street performances by the Paris-based artist
Curator: Jane Farver
Funding: Étant donnés, The French-American Fund for Contemporary Art, David Zwirner Gallery New York, Cultural Services of the French Embassy in Boston, Nimoy Foundation, Barbara and Julian Cherubini via the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, Council for the Arts at MIT, Massachusetts Cultural Council

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Oct. 11, 2008-Jan. 4, 2009
More than 200 vintage photographs and photographically illustrated books in a survey of 19th-century scientific and pseudoscientific photography
Curator: Corey Keller
Catalogue: Yale, 280 pp., $50
Tour: Albertina, Vienna, Mar. 20-June 6, 2009
Funding: George Frederick Jewett Foundation

Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami
Oct. 11-Nov.  9, 2008
Collaboration between Cano, filmmaker Clifton Childree and choreographer Katherine Kramer, in which the artist’s marionettes take the form of 10 masterpiece paintings and sculptures Funding: Paula and Joel Friedland, Ben & Rita Holloway, Katzman Family Foundation/Dr. Shulamit & Chaim Katzman, Dr. Jules Oaklander, Shirley and Carl Schwartz, Citi Foundation

Norton Museum of Art
Oct. 12, 2008-Jan. 4, 2009
42 works surveying the history of Chinese ink painting in the second half of the 20th century
Curators: Janet Baker, Claudia Brown, Robert D. Mowry
Catalogue: $50, 244 pp.
Funding: Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, Blakemore Foundation, David Woods Kemper Memorial Foundation, others
Tour: This show has already appeared at the Harvard University Art Museum and the Phoenix Art Museum; it continues to the Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kan., Feb. 21-May 24, 2009
Also opening: "Coming into Focus: Jeane von Oppenheim and Photography at the Norton, 1998-2008," Oct. 12, 2008-Jan. 4, 2009

Baltimore Museum of Art
Oct. 12, 2008-Jan. 4, 2009
The first U.S. survey for the Austrian artist, including his eccentric furniture and lamps, as well as papier-mâché groupings and free-standing sculptures
Curator: Darsie Alexander
Catalogue: 288 pp., $44.95, with contributions by Tom Eccles, Rachel Harrison, others
Funding: Constance R. Caplan, Suzanne F. Cohen and the Suzanne F. Cohen Exhibition Fund, Stiles Tuttle Colwill and Jonathan Gargiulo, others
Tour: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Apr. 5, 2009-June 28, 2009

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Oct. 14, 2008-Jan. 4, 2009
Nearly 300 drawings and sculptures by the Idaho farmboy who was born deaf and communicated via evocative drawings he made throughout his life (1899-1977)
Curator: Ann Percy
Film: James Castle: Portrait of an Artist by Jeffrey Wolf is being shown in the galleries
Catalogue: Yale, 280 pp., $60
Funding: Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, NEA, Henry Luce Foundation, others

J. Paul Getty Museum
Oct. 14, 2008-Mar. 1, 2009
More than 150 works by the 19th-century San Francisco photographic pioneer and his contemporaries, and including previously little-known daguerreotypes from the Gold Rush era as well as his mammoth plate photographs of Yosemite, panoramas of San Francisco and photographs made along the California coast
Curator: Weston Naef
Also on view: "Jim Dine: Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets), Oct. 30, 2008-Feb. 9, 2009

Frick Collection
Oct. 15, 2008-Jan. 18, 2009
Nearly 40 statuettes and reliefs by the long-overlooked Renaissance master Andrea Riccio (1470-1532), celebrated during his time as a "soverign master of bronze"
Curators: Denise Allen, Peta Motture
Catalogue: Philip Wilson Publishers, $80
Funding: Christian Humann Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Howard Phipps, Jr., Samuel H. Kress Foundation, others

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Oct. 15, 2008-Jan. 25, 2009
The installation Place (Village), a grouping of 200 vintage hand-made dollhouses lit from within, plus six additional sculptures and 15 drawings by the artist
Curator: Cheryl Brutvan
Funding: Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family Foundation, Catherine and Paul Buttenwieser Fund, Robert and Jane Burke Fund, others

Whitney Museum of American Art
Oct. 15, 2008-Feb. 15, 2009
The celebrated American artist (1898-1976) crafts wire toys, makes his animated Circus and invents the mobile
Curators: Joan Simon, Brigitte Léal
Tour: Centre Pompidou, Paris, Mar. 18-July 20, 2008
Also on view: "Corin Hewitt: Seed Stage," Oct. 3, 2008-Jan. 4, 2009; "Between the Still and Moving Image," Oct. 1-Nov. 30, 2008

Parsons the New School for Design, Kellen Gallery
Oct. 16, 2008-Feb. 1, 2009
Examining the idea of "Democracy" as a brand, via works from Alexis Bhagat, Paul Chan, Sam Durant, Kota Ezawa, Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes, Susan Hiller, Ashley Hunt, Emma Kay, Komar & Melamid, Asaf Koriat, Runo Lagomarsino, Miguel Luciano, Aleksandra Mir, Dave Muller, Timo Nasseri, Nadine Robinson, Carey Young, Ariel Orozco, Trevor Paglen, Anri Sala, Hank Willis Thomas, Johan Tiren, Brian Tolle, Judi Werthein, The Yes Men, others
Curator: Carin Kuoni

Walker Art Center
Oct. 18, 2008-Jan. 11, 2009
More than 100 works dating from 1956-86 by the radical Japanese performance artist Tetsumi Kudo (1935-90), whose metaphysical esthetic was a reaction to the atomic era
Curator: Doryun Chong, in collaboration with Hiroko Kudo, the artist’s widow
Catalogue: 208 pp., $45, with essay by Mike Kelley
Funding: E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Japan Foundation

Cleveland Museum of Art
Oct. 19, 2008-Jan. 18, 2009
Nearly 300 objects from more than 50 collections in the first comparative study of work by the three great luxury-goods designers of the Gilded Age: Peter Carl Fabergé, Louis Comfort Tiffany and René Lalique
Curator: Stephen Harrison
Tour: Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco
Funding: National City, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, Ohio Arts Council, others

National Gallery of Art
Oct. 19, 2008-Mar. 22, 2009
Approximately 150 works of sculpture, painting, mosaic and other items from the lavish vacation villas around the Bay of Naples in the first century BC
Curator: Carol Mattusch
Film: Pompeii and the Roman Villa, a 30-minute documentary
Catalogue: Thames and Hudson, 360 pp., $60
Tour: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, May 3-Oct. 4, 2009
Funding: Bank of America, Charles Engelhard Foundation, others

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Oct. 19, 2008-Mar. 1, 2009
Surveying artists books from 1965 to the present
Curators: Lynda Bunting, Lisa Gabrielle Mark
Also opening: "Louise Bourgeois," Oct. 26, 2008-Jan. 25, 2009

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Oct. 23, 2008-Jan. 11, 2009
39 works purchased by the Hirshhorn from the collection of Count Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, focusing on Conceptual, Light and Space, Minimal and Environmental art
Curators: Evelyn Hankins, Giuseppe Panza
Funding: Holenia Trust, Friends of Jim and Barbara Demetrion Endowment Fund, others
Also opening: "Ways of Seeing: Guiseppe and Giovanna Panza," Oct. 23, 2008-Jan. 11, 2009

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Oct. 24, 2008-Feb. 1, 2009
Over 250 works acquired by the museum during the 31-year tenure of the now-retiring director of the museum, presented via an unprecedented collaboration by the Met’s 17 curatorial departments

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Oct. 25, 2008-Feb. 1, 2009
Survey of Holzer’s work from the mid-‘90s to today
Curators: Elizabeth Smith
Catalogue: 125 pp., $40