Axa Gallery
Nov. 2, 2005-Jan. 28, 2006
Organized by the International Print Center New York, 90 works exploring the power of printed images to shape cultural ideas, by artists including William Blake, Vija Celmins, Albrecht Dürer, Max Ernst, M.C. Escher, Francisco Goya, Rockwell Kent, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, José Guadalupe Posada and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi
Curator: Amy Baker Sandback
Funding: International Fine Print Dealers Association, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Arthur Ross Foundation

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Nov. 2, 2005-Mar. 26, 2006
Richly decorated gold objects from the Akan peoples of Africa’s "Gold Coast," from clothes and woven kente cloths to Western-influenced objects, such as watches and crowns

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Nov. 3, 2005-Jan. 9, 2006
MOCA’s Grand Ave. space presents 55 pieces by this Los Angeles-based artist, who works with labor-intensive copperplate etchings to create portraits of friends, co-workers and celebrities, each pictured in a characteristic situation
Curator: Ann Goldstein
Catalogue: 64 pp., $25
Funding: Nimoy Fund for New and Emerging Artists, Fran and Ray Stark Foundation Fund to Support the Work of Emerging Artist, James Irvine Foundation

Henry Art Gallery
Nov. 5, 2005-Jan. 29, 2006
The first major retrospective of the San Francisco feminist and pioneer of interactive art, who creates lush virtual worlds and uses fictional personas to explore issues like the construction of sexed identity, spectacle and spectatorship
Curator: Robin Held
Catalogue: "The Art and Films of Lynn Hershman Leeson: Secret Agents, Private I," 288 pp., $60
Funding: Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, City of Seattle, Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, donors to the Henry Art Gallery Contemporary Art Fund

Carnegie Museum of Art
Nov. 5, 2005–Feb. 5, 2006
Images of the steel industry, the circus, household items, rural architecture and urban life from the largely forgotten -- but significant -- modernist photographe (1890–1944)
Curator: Howard Bossen
Catalogue: 236 pp., $65
Funding: Drue Heinz Trust, Robert S. Waters Charitable Trust
Also on view: "Witness to the Fifties: Selections from the Pittsburgh Photographic Library, 1950–1953," Nov. 5, 2005–Feb. 26, 2006

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Nov. 5, 2005-Jan. 29, 2006 
Five Latin-American artists -- Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Teresa Margolles, Daniel J. Martinez, Oscar Muñoz and Regina Silveira -- who explore the fragility of human life using unconventional materials
Curator: Gilbert Vicario
Funding: Nicholson Construction
Also on view: "Yuletide at Bayou Bend: That’s Entertaining!," Nov. 17, 2005-Jan. 1, 2006; "Basquiat," Nov. 20, 2005–Feb. 12, 2006

Drawing Center
Nov. 5, 2005–Feb. 11, 2006
Work created by both Vietnamese and American artists dating both from the Vietnam War era and the present day, including hand-printed images of helicopters by Nancy Spero, photomontages by Martha Rosler, woven drawings by Dinh Q. Le and works drawn with light on leaves by Binh Danh
Curator: Catherine de Zegher

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, N.Y.
Nov. 5, 2005–Jan. 8, 2006
19 artists -- Slater Bradley, Larry Clark, Greg Fiering and Matt Luem, Lilah Freedland, Tim Gardner, Luis Gispert, Anthony Goicolea, Janine Gordon, Ryan Humphrey, Nikki S. Lee, Julia Loktev, Maria Marshall, Ryan McGinness, Chloe Piene, Jeff Reed, Tom Sachs, Dean Sameshima, Collier Schorr, and Type A (Adam Ames and Andrew Bordwin) –- explore that strange beast, the adolescent male
Curator: Shamim M. Momin (circulated by Independent Curators International)
Funding: Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Cornell Council for the Arts
Tour: This show has already been at the Salina Art Center in Kansas and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Colorado; it continues to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Oct. 22, 2006–Jan. 14, 2007

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Nov. 8, 2005–Jan. 29, 2006
Ca. 100 works representing four centuries of French master drawings, from the Renaissance to Post-Impressionism and including Jean Clouet, Claude Lorrain, Antoine Watteau, Edgar Degas and Georges Seurat
Curators: Perrin Stein, Martin Royalton-Kisch
Catalogue: 240 pp.
Tour: British Museum
Also on view: "David Milne Watercolors: ‘Painting Toward the Light,’" Nov. 8, 2005–Jan. 29, 2006; "Annual Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche," Nov. 22, 2005–Jan. 8, 2006

Studio Museum in Harlem
Nov. 9, 2005-Mar. 12, 2006
Art from 35 of emerging African-American artists, with inspirations ranging from hip hop videos and folktales to baseball stars and Abstract Expressionism
Curator: Thelma Golden, Christine Y. Kim
Catalogue: 129 pp.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Nov. 10, 2005-Feb. 20, 2006
46 paintings, 24 drawings and 10 sculptures by the West Coast artist, whose work draws on Native American art and culture, modern art, Zen Buddhism and Hinduism
Curator: Carol S. Eliel
Catalogue: 136 pp., $45
Funding: Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Herta and Paul Amir Art Foundation, Judith Rothschild Foundation, Pasadena Art Alliance

High Museum of Art
Nov. 12, 2005-Feb. 26, 2006
Ca. 100 tempura paintings, watercolors and drawings from the 1930s to the present, focusing on domestic interiors, portraits, still lifes and architecture
Curators: Anne Classon Knutson, Kathleen A. Foster, Michael Taylor
Catalogue: 223 pp., $49.95 cloth, $35 paper
Funding: Ford Motor Company
Tour: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Mar. 29-July 16, 2006

Art Institute of Chicago
Nov. 12, 2005-Jan. 28, 2006
Work by three young Chicago artists: Jessica Rowe’s images of household memorabilia and clothing, Jason Salavon’s digitally manipulated images using digital data and Brian Ulrich’s images of subjects caught in the act of mass consumption
Also on view: "Legends and Legacy: Elizabeth Catlett," Nov. 13, 2005-Feb. 11, 2006; "From Darkroom to Digital: Photographic Variations," Nov. 19, 2005–Feb. 26, 2006

Walker Art Center
Nov. 13-Feb. 26, 2006
26 works featuring Warhol’s iconic images of disasters and media stars, giving a glimpse of the artist’s media-saturated take on life in the ’60s
Curator: Douglas Fogle
Funding: Northern Trust
Tour: Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Mar. 18–June 18, 2006; Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada, July 8–Oct. 1, 2006

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Nov. 13, 2005-Jan. 29, 2006
50 paintings charting the Tennessee-born artist’s oeuvre as he moved between the New York and Paris art worlds and figurative and Abstract Expressionist styles
Curator: Michael Taylor, Emily Hage
Catalogue: 143 pp., $35
Tour: The show has already appeared in Minneapolis, Knoxville and Greenville, N.C.
Also on view: "Gaetano Pesce: Pushing the Limits," Nov. 18, 2005-Apr. 9, 2006

National Gallery of Art
Nov. 13, 2005-Feb. 20, 2006
The famous series of 30 photographs –- each representing one year since 1975 -– taken of the photographer’s wife and sisters-in-law
Curator: Sarah Greenough
Funding: Trellis Fund, Ryna and Melvin Cohen Family Foundation

Whitney Museum of American Art
Nov. 17, 2005–Jan. 29, 2006
The only U.S. presentation of Ruscha’s contribution to the 2005 Venice Biennale, featuring two parallel suites of industrial landscapes
Funding: Norman and Melissa Selby, Jack Rudin (in honor of Beth Rudin DeWoody)
Also on view: "Reverence: The Films Of Owen Land (Formerly Known As George Landow)," Nov. 2–Nov. 27, 2005; "The Art of Richard Tuttle," Nov. 10, 2005–Feb. 5, 2006; "Standard Gauge: Film Works by Morgan Fisher, 1968-2003," Nov. 30, 2005–Feb. 12, 2006

Bard Graduate Center, New York
Nov. 18, 2005- Feb. 5, 2006
Ca. 130 works in the first major exhibition of propaganda fashion in the Asia-Pacific War and World War II
Curator: Jacqueline M. Atkins
Catalogue: 400 pp., $65
Funding: Blakemore Foundation

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Nov. 19, 2005-Jan. 29, 2006
Full-scale survey of Smith’s 20-year career, with ca. 100 objects grouped thematically, including works in plaster, bronze, paper, glass and ceramic, as well as installations, prints, drawings and photographs
Curator: Siri Engberg
Catalogue: $65 hardcover, $35 softcover
Funding: Elizabeth A. Sackler Museum Educational Trust, Agnes Gund, Daniel Shapiro, Barbara Lee Family Foundation
Tour: Walker Art Center, Nov. 19-Jan. 29, 2006
Also on view: "Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967-2005," Nov. 19, 2005-Feb. 28, 2006; "Double Feature: Steve McQueen and Peter Sarkisian," Nov. 10, 2005- May 21, 2006

Armand Hammer Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Nov. 20, 2005-Mar. 12, 2006
500+ original drawings from 15 comic book greats: Winsor McCay, Lyonel Feininger, George Herriman, E.C. Segar, Frank King, Chester Gould, Milton Caniff, Charles Schulz, Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gary Panter, and Chris Ware, with work from the first half of the 20th century at the Hammer and underground and experimental works of the second half at MOCA
Curators: John Carlin, Brian Walker, Michael Darling, Cynthia Burlingham
Catalogue: 328 pp., $45, with essays by Tom De Haven, Stanley Crouch, Robert Storr, Raymond Pettibon, Matt Groening, Dave Eggers, others

Museum of Modern Art
Nov. 23, 2005–Mar. 6, 2006
Seven drawings, a pair of models and a selection of recent photographs focusing on Spanish architect Emilio Ambasz’s House of Spiritual Retreat which combines traditional Andalusian construction with a surrealist sensibility, constructed in 2004 near Seville
Curator: Tina di Carlo