Mass MoCA
Aug. 1-Dec. 31, 2010
Photos of Northampton, Mass., residents who agreed to be pose as their imagined "secret selves" for Star Trek actor-turned-fine artist Leonard Nimoy
Catalogue: $30

Museum of Modern Art
Aug. 1-Nov. 1, 2010
Ah, the sculptor’s idea of a photograph, via ca. 300 photos of sculptures and photo-based artworks involving sculptural subjects, by artists ranging from Eugène Atget, Hans Bellmer and Constantin Brancusi to  Gillian Wearing, Hannah Wilke and Iwao Yamawaki
Curator: Roxana Marcoci
Catalogue: $55, 242 pp.
Funding: William Randolph Hearst Endowment Fund, David Teiger, Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.
Tour:  Kunsthaus Zürich, Feb. 25-May 15, 2011

New Museum
Aug. 4-Sept. 26, 2010
A "highly partial account of five decades of printed matter in, near, about and around the Middle East," including 700 works of pulp fictions, propaganda, monographs and guidebooks, and much, much more
Curator: The show is organized by the magazine Bidoun: Arts and Culture From the Middle East
Funding: Abu Dhabi Art, Emirates Foundation, Bohen Foundation, Foundation for Arts Initiatives

Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Aug. 6-Nov. 8, 2010
Works on paper, books, ephemera and other materials by the late Minimalist, shown in conjunction with the permanent installation of a LeWitt graphite drawing on the museum’s staircase

High Museum of Art
Aug. 7, 2010-Jan. 9, 2011
Dalí's art after 1940, via 100+ works, including 40 paintings and a related group of drawings, prints and "Dalí ephemera"
Curator: Elliott King
Catalogue: $39.95, 184 pp.

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Aug. 7, 2010-ongoing
Forty-plus Qing-dynasty porcelains made during the 60-year reign of the Kangxi emperor (1662-1772), including two pieces collected by Augustus the Strong (1670-1733), king of Poland
Curator: Felice Fischer

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Aug. 7, 2010-Jan. 16, 2011
Twenty-one prints by modernist legend Paul Klee, recreating a show that was originally held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1946
Curator: John Zarobell

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Aug. 7-Oct. 31, 2010 
Sixty-nine photographs donated by the artist to the MFAH, presenting a chronicle of messages left behind by New Orleans residents during 2005’s deadly Hurricane Katrina

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Park
Aug. 9-Nov. 28, 2010
Spotlight on the work of the Danish art-provocateurs known as "Superflex" (a.k.a. Jakob Fenger, Rasmus Nielsen and Bjørnstjerne Reuter Christiansen)

Walker Art Center
Aug. 12, 2010-Jan. 30, 2011
More "relational esthetics," via works exploring subtle transformations of everyday life by Joseph Beuys, Mircea Cantor, Marsden Hartley, Rivane Neuenschwander, Meg Webster, others
Curator: Eric Crosby

Brooklyn Museum
Aug. 14-Oct. 17, 2010
This "unusual exhibition" (in the words of the museum’s press release) spotlights the winner of Work of Art, the Sarah Jessica Parker-produced art-world reality show on Bravo

Parrish Art Museum
Aug. 15-Oct. 3, 2010
Thirty-five works by ten artists who share "a quirky and idiosyncratic take on the Pop tradition": Scott Anderson, Brian Bress, Cole Case, James Gobel, Glenn Goldberg, Leia Jervert, Michael Lazarus, Nathan Mabry, Kristen Morgin, Jeni Spota
Curator: David Pagel
Funding: Dorothy Lichtenstein, C.A.L. Foundation, Sandy and Stephen Perlbinder

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo.
Aug. 20-Dec. 5, 2010
Newly commissioned sculpture by Brooklyn-based artist Marc Swanson, which "pays homage to the American buffalo or bison"

Getty Center
Aug. 24, 2010-Feb. 6, 2011
The Getty Museum's holdings of medieval manuscripts from Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp and Utrecht, including works made for the dukes of Burgundy (Philip the Good and Charles the Bold) and the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II
Curator: Thomas Kren
Catalogue: Illuminated Manuscripts of Belgium and the Netherlands in the J. Paul Getty Museum, $19.95, 96 pp.

American Folk Art Museum
Aug. 24-Aug. 2011
Looking at "depictions of people" in folk art, from 19th-century miniatures to a 20th-century circus banner
Curator: AFAM’s education dept.
Funding: Leir Charitable Foundations, Gerard C. Wertkin Exhibition Fund, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts

Getty Villa
Aug. 26, 2010-Jan. 3, 2011
Greek plays and stagecraft as a subject for classical artists, in a major international loan exhibition that coincides with the Villa's Outdoor Theater production of Sophocles' Elektra
Curator: Mary Louise Hart
Catalogue: $40, 176 pp.

Smithsonian American Art Museum
Aug. 27, 2010-Jan. 17, 2011
D.C. artist John Gossage’s 1985 series capturing images of a small, unnamed pond between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, over a four-year time period
Curator: Toby Jurovics
Catalogue: The Pond (Aperture, Sept. 2010)
Funding: Bernie Stadiem Endowment Fund

Hammer Museum, UCLA
Aug. 28-Oct. 3, 2010
A new presentation of a signature participatory artwork by Conceptual pioneer Tom Marioni, Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art, which involves a bar-like installation and the accumulation of detritus from four gatherings he will host in the museum as part of the piece, as well as a selection of drawings by the artist
Curator: Anne Ellegood

Jewish Museum
Aug. 29-Oct. 31, 2010
Ca. 36 fish-shaped lamps by starchitect Frank Gehry, produced by New City Editions

Museum of Arts and Design
Aug. 31-Oct. 10, 2010
The winners of the 2010 Abraaj Prize, honoring contemporary work created by artists from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia
Funding: Abraaj Capital