Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami
Dec. 3, 2008-Mar. 21, 2009
Seven films exploring music, sound and communication, including the new Answer Me (2008), by the Berlin-based Albanian artist, in a show co-organized with the Cincinnati CAC
Curator: Raphaela Platow
Funding: John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, others

Bass Museum of Art
Dec. 4, 2008-Feb. 8, 2009
Showcasing Russian creativity via works from AES+F Group, Vladimir Dubossarsky and Alexander Vinogradov, Dmitri Gutov, Alexei Kostroma, Julia Milner, MishMash Project, Alexander Ponomarev, Rostan Tavasiev, Haim Sokol, others
Curator: Olga Sviblova
Funding: Government of Moscow, Department of Culture of Moscow, Multimedia Art Museum Moscow, others

Henry Art Gallery, Seattle
Dec. 5, 2008-Mar. 29, 2009
Exploring the nature of photography via works from Anna Atkins, Imogen Cunningham, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Rondel Partridge, others
Curator: Bridget Nowlin

High Museum of Art, Atlanta
Dec. 6, 2008-Apr. 5, 2009
115 works by the self-taught Georgia artist (b. 1914) known for his fanciful wood-carvings, including portraits of U.S. and African leaders, religious images, patriotic works and carvings influenced by African forms
Funding: National Endowment for the Arts, Henry Luce Foundation, Judith Rothschild Foundation
Catalogue: 119 pp., $30
Tour: American Folk Art Museum, New York

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego
Dec. 7, 2008-Feb. 22, 2009
Women artists who use drawing to explore themes of individual and social identity: Amy Adler, Tania Candiani, Jacci Den Hartog, Kim Dingle, Iana Quesnell and Nancy Rubins

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Dec. 9, 2008-Mar. 1, 2009
Ca. 90 bracelets, necklaces, earrings, brooches and tiaras by the celebrated sculptor
Curator: Alexander S.C. Rower, Mark Rosenthal
Catalogue: 288 pp., $ 65
Tour: This show has already been seen at the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Fla. and the Philadelphia Museum of Art; it continues to the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Mar. 31-June 22, 2009

Hammer Museum
Dec. 9-Mar.15, 2009
L.A.-born artist Erin Cosgrove’s animation, What Manner of Person Art Thou? (2008), is inspired by the 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry
Curator: Ali Subotnick
Funding: Susan Bay-Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation
Also opening: "Shirana Shahbazi," Dec. 20-Apr. 30, 2009

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Dec. 10, 2008-Aug. 9, 2009
Ceramics, prints and textiles from Kyoto and the surrounding Kansai region

Chelsea Art Museum
Dec. 10, 2008-Feb. 7, 2009
Juxtaposing 80 paintings by mid-20th century Italian artists with works by Lebanese, Egyptian, Syrian and Iranian artists, illustrating the cultural interchange between the two regions
Curators: Sam Bardaouil, Till Fellrath

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Dec. 12, 2008-Feb. 13, 2009
Nine artists explore the concept of "translation" in art: John Baldessari, Mel Bochner, Omer Fast, Spencer Finch, Nina Katchadourian, Sherrie Levine, Jonathan Monk, Anri Sala and Brooke Stroud

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Dec. 12, 2008-Mar. 8, 2009
Eighteen works by designers and architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Greene and Greene, Henry Van de Velde and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, from the collection of the longtime LACMA patrons, venture capitalist Max Palevsky and his wife Jodie
Curator: Wendy Kaplan

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Dec. 13, 2008-Nov. 1, 2009
Investigating the Mediterranean’s impact on art, via ca. 35 works by Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Raoul Dufy and Chaim Soutine
Curator: Michael R. Taylor
Also opening: "The Art of Japanese Craft: 1875 to the Present," Dec. 6, 2008-Sept. 2009; "Peaks of Faith: Buddhist Art of the Himalayas," Dec. 20, 2008-May 2009; "The Privilege of Paint: Portraits from the Courts of India," Dec. 20, 2008-May 2009

Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Dec. 13, 2008-Apr. 5, 2009
50 realist and naturalist works from the late-19th and early-20th centuries, by Adolphe Appian, François Bonvin, Jules Breton, Edgar Chahine, Louis Weldon Hawkins, Auguste Lepère, Léon Lhermitte, Charles Milcendeau and Thèodule Ribot
Catalogue: 96 pp., $ 29.95
Funding: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Exhibitions Endowment Fund
Also opening: "Sleeping in Style: Textiles for the Bedroom," Dec. 6, 2008-May 31, 2009; "Breaking with Convention: Avant-garde Artist's Books," Dec. 6, 2008-May 24, 2009; "From Rembrandt to Matisse: Selected Works on Paper," Dec. 20, 2008-June 14, 2009

MASS MoCA
Dec. 13, 2008-Oct. 31, 2009
The Turner Prize-winning British artist presents two giant sculptures based on microscope images of metal particles taken from a photographic print depicting Chinese laborers who were brought to Massachusetts in 1870 to break a strike at the Sampson Shoe Company, once housed in the galleries where the works will be shown
Curator: Susan Cross
Catalogue: essays by Susan Cross, Anthony W. Lee
Funding: Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Henry Moore Foundation, others

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
Dec. 14, 2008-Mar. 8, 2009
Thirty paintings spanning the career of Louis B. Sloan (1932-2008), who taught at PAFA from 1962-1997
Curator: Lewis Tanner Moore
Catalogue: 56 pp.
Also opening: "Certificate, Post Baccalaureate & MFA Juried Exhibition," Dec. 5, 2008-Feb. 1, 2009

Museum of Modern Art
Dec. 14, 2008-Feb. 16, 2009
Ca. 60 paintings and 25 drawings, spanning the South African-born artist’s 30-year career
Curator: Connie Butler
Catalogue: 288 pp., $ 45
Funding: Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine G. Farley, Mondriaan Foundation, others
Tour: This show has already been seen at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Also on view: "Focus: Sol LeWitt," Dec. 5, 2008-June 29, 2009; "Focus: Jasper Johns," Dec. 5, 2008-Feb. 16, 2009; "Artist's Choice: Vik Muniz, Rebus," Dec. 14, 2008-Feb. 23, 2009

Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Dec. 14, 2008-Feb. 8, 2009
An installation by Harry Shearer (the voice of Mr. Burns on the Simpsons) compiling found footage of James Carville, Larry King, Chris Matthews, John McCain, Barack Obama, Dr. Phil and others, caught in the moments before they "go live" on television
Also opening: "Kwang-Young Chun: The Soul -- Journey to America," Dec. 14, 2008-May 24, 2009

Getty Center
Dec. 16, 2008-May 3, 2009
The legacy of Ludovico Carracci (1555-1619) and his two cousins, Agostino (1557-1602) and Annibale (1560-1609), in a show co-organized with the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Curators: Scott Schaefer, Andreas Henning
Catalogue: 124 pp., $ 34.95
Also opening: "Drawing the Classical Figure," Dec. 23, 2008-Mar. 8, 2009

Nasher Museum of Art
Dec. 18, 2008-Apr. 5, 2009
Exploring the art associated with England’s "Bloomsbury Group," via works produced between 1910 and the 1970s by the likes of Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry, Duncan Grant and Dora Carrington
Catalogue: 272 pp., $35
Funding: National Endowment for the Humanities, others
Tour: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, N.Y.; Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Ill.; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Mass.; Palmer Museum of Art, University Park, Pa.

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Dec. 18, 2008-Apr. 19, 2009
Books by Karen Finley, Mike Kelley, Ellsworth Kelly, Paul McCarthy, Robert Motherwell and Lawrence Weiner, alongside a rare edition of Salvador Dali’s Alice in Wonderland
Curators: Siri Engberg, Rosemary Furtak
Funding: Babe Davis

Art Institute of Chicago
Dec. 19, 2008-ongoing
Ninety-two works from the AIC collection return to expanded galleries, after being on loan to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth
Also on view: "The New Alsdorf Galleries of Indian, Southeast Asian, Himalayan and Islamic Art," Dec. 12, 2008-ongoing

Aspen Art Museum
Dec. 19, 2008-Feb. 1, 2009
Art exploring contemporary "visibility," from Walead Beshty, Alexandra Bircken, Ceal Floyer, Tom Friedman, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Wade Guyton, Wolfgang Laib, Robert Morris, William O’Brien, Mitzi Pederson, Dieter Roth, Robert Ryman, Fred Sandback, Anna Sew Hoy, Gedi Sibony, Rudolf Stingel, Lawrence Weiner, Jennifer West and Erwin Wurm
Curator: Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson
Funding: AAM National Council, Susan and Larry Marx

Brooklyn Museum
Dec. 19, 2008-May 31, 2009
Nine ancient goddess figurines, plus one ceramic goddess lent by Judy Chicago -- a large-scale version of a figure seated at Chicago’s seminal The Dinner Party installation
Curators: Madeleine E. Cody, Maura Reilly

Detroit Institute of Arts
Dec. 26, 2008-May 17, 2009
Artist-designed chess sets, ranging from a chessboard once owned by Catharine the Great, to sets created by Man Ray and Salvador Dalí
Funding: Dr. George and Vivian Dean, Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, City of Detroit