Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: MOTOR VEHICLES (92%); ELECTRIC VEHICLES (89%); AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGY (89%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (77%); DELAYS & POSTPONEMENTS (71%)
COMPANY: PAYPAL INC (58%)
PERSON: LARRY PAGE (51%); SERGEY BRIN (51%)
LOAD-DATE: July 19, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: Joe Nocera test-driving the Tesla Roadster.(PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER DASILVA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)

Elon Musk, the chairman of Tesla Motors, with a Roadster, an electric car that costs $109,000.(PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER DASILVA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)(pg. C4)

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

570 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
July 18, 2008 Friday

Late Edition - Final

Chief Struggles to Revive Merrill Lynch
BYLINE: By LOUISE STORY
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1036 words
John A. Thain never said that turning around Merrill Lynch would be easy. ''We have not seen the bottom,'' he declared in December, when he took the reins of the troubled Wall Street giant.

But not even Mr. Thain expected Merrill, the nation's largest brokerage firm, to go downhill so fast or so far. On Thursday, Merrill reported its fourth consecutive quarterly loss, a $4.9 billion deficit that exceeded even the most pessimistic forecasts.

The numbers are staggering. During the past 12 months, Merrill, known for its ''Thundering Herd'' of stockbrokers, has lost about $19.2 billion, which works out to about $52 million a day. It suffered $9.7 billion of write-downs in its latest quarter, bringing its charges since the credit crisis first flared last summer to more than $41 billion.

It is quite a comedown for Mr. Thain, 53, who won praise for revitalizing the embattled New York Stock Exchange before taking the top job at Merrill.

The firm's problems underscore how bankers and policy makers are struggling to contain the damage to the financial system and the broader economy caused by the collapse of housing-related debt.

''I'm generally a very optimistic guy, but this is as difficult a market environment as I've seen in my entire career,'' Mr. Thain said in an interview Thursday evening. The turmoil in the markets, he said, was likely to persist into next year.

The magnitude of the problems seems to have caught Mr. Thain by surprise. Just a few months ago he assured investors that Merrill did not need to raise more capital. ''We're very confident that we have the capital base now that we need to go forward in 2008,'' he said in January.

But with the red ink deepening, Merrill is again moving to shore up its weakened finances. The firm said Thursday that it was selling its stake in Bloomberg L.P., the news and data company founded by Michael R. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, as well as its controlling interest in Financial Data Services.

Merrill's results, reported after the close of trading on Thursday, could depress financial shares when the market opens on Friday morning. Merrill's share price fell as much as 7 percent in after-hours trading on Thursday, after closing up $2.73 at $30.73. Citigroup, as well, is expected to announce large credit losses in its earnings report Friday morning.

At the core of Merrill's problems are mortgage-linked investments that the firm amassed under Mr. Thain's predecessor, E. Stanley O'Neal. These investments continued to erode in value in the second quarter, putting the firm in a desperate position. As Merrill executives tallied the write-downs, they realized they would need more capital -- fast.

Mr. Thain has raised $15.5 billion of capital since he came to Merrill. In January, he protected new equity investors from stock dilution, making it very expensive for Merrill to raise more equity. At the time, Merrill executives believed the firm had marked down its mortgage assets so much that it was unlikely their value would deteriorate even more.

But deteriorate they did. So in June Mr. Thain dispatched Gregory Fleming, the company's president and chief operating officer, to negotiate the sale of some of Merrill's most valuable assets, including its 20 percent stake in Bloomberg, which Merrill bought in the 1980s. Merrill closed that deal for $4.425 billion with Bloomberg on Thursday. Merrill has also negotiated a pending sale of its stake in Financial Data, a back-office subsidiary.

Mr. Fleming also held a series of negotiations to sell part of Merrill's 49 percent stake in BlackRock, the asset management company, a step that briefly strained relations between Merrill and BlackRock.

Mr. Thain told analysts on June 11 that he might sell the stake, without first warning Laurence D. Fink, the head of BlackRock. The two chiefs have since smoothed things over and on Thursday announced that the firms would extend their distribution agreement for four more years, putting BlackRock investment funds into the hands of financial advisers at Merrill.

''We did some soul-searching together, and we said this is an important relationship,'' said Mr. Fink, whom Mr. Thain beat out last fall for the top job at Merrill.

Mr. Thain, sometimes called Mr. Fix-It because of his work at the Big Board, said he never anticipated that mortgage prices would spiral as far as they have.

A technocrat by nature, Mr. Thain is very familiar with mortgage bonds from his days on Goldman Sachs's mortgage trading desk in the 1980s. Now, during conference calls with analysts, it is usually Mr. Thain, not Merrill's chief financial officer, who jumps in to answer questions. And Merrill employees say that he provides details rather than fluff in employee meetings.

Asked on Thursday where mortgage investments were headed, Mr. Thain was reluctant to go beyond the obvious: it will be hard for these investments to decline again as much as they did in the past six months.

Understandably, Mr. Thain tries to focus attention on Merrill's current businesses, which had $7.5 billion in revenue in the quarter, a 21 percent drop from the same period a year ago but an improvement from the previous quarter. Some bright areas include interest rates, currencies and commodities trading and global wealth management, which includes its Main Street retail operation of financial advising.

Mr. Thain, who has been criticized for reversing himself on plans to raise money, was careful on Thursday to say ''right now'' when he talked about the firm's capital needs. He acknowledged that he could be back in the seller's booth next quarter if asset values deteriorate.

But Mr. Thain disagreed with analysts who say Merrill has run out of assets to sell.

''We have a trillion-dollar balance sheet,'' he said. ''There are in fact other options you guys have never heard of.''

In a conference call, one analyst suggested that Mr. Thain could end Merrill's pain once and for all by purging the rest of its mortgage assets.

''With your reputation, I can imagine you're incredibly frustrated,'' said the analyst, Meredith Whitney of Oppenheimer & Company.

''I agree with you on the frustration part,'' Mr. Thain replied.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: BANKING & FINANCE (89%); STOCK EXCHANGES (77%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (77%); COMPANY EARNINGS (76%); INTERVIEWS (76%); FINANCIAL RESULTS (76%); COMPANY LOSSES (76%); SECURITIES BROKERS (74%); SECURITIES TRADING (72%); CREDIT CRISIS (78%)
COMPANY: MERRILL LYNCH & CO INC (92%); BLOOMBERG LP (84%); CITIGROUP INC (58%); NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE LLC (56%)
TICKER: MLY (LSE) (92%); MER (NYSE) (92%); 8675 (TSE) (92%); C (NYSE) (58%); 8710 (TSE) (58%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS519130 INTERNET PUBLISHING & BROADCASTING & WEB SEARCH PORTALS (84%); NAICS519110 NEWS SYNDICATES (84%); NAICS511120 PERIODICAL PUBLISHERS (84%); NAICS523120 SECURITIES BROKERAGE (58%); NAICS522210 CREDIT CARD ISSUING (58%); NAICS522110 COMMERCIAL BANKING (58%)
PERSON: JOHN THAIN (94%); MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (52%); MICHAEL MCMAHON (53%); STAN O'NEAL (50%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (79%) NEW YORK, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (79%)
LOAD-DATE: July 18, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: Merrill Lynch hoped John A. Thain would be its Mr. Fix-It.(PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG NEWS)

Merrill Lynch holds a 49 percent stake in BlackRock, the asset management company, which is led by Laurence D. Fink. Merrill had considered selling its stake, but then decided against it.(PHOTOGRAPH BY CHESTER HIGGINS JR./THE NEW YORK TIMES)(pg. C2)

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

571 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
July 18, 2008 Friday

Late Edition - Final

Corrections
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; 4A; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 91 words
An article on July 5 about the entrepreneurs who envision the comeback of the dirigible misidentified the country of origin of the CycloCrane, a semirigid airship that was envisioned as a cargo hauler. It was the United States, not Germany. The article also referred incorrectly to the gas used in the Hindenburg zeppelin, which burned and crashed in Lakehurst, N.J., in 1937. While it was designed to use helium, the Hindenburg flew with hydrogen from the beginning because of an American embargo on helium. It did not switch from helium to hydrogen.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: EMBARGOES & SANCTIONS (51%)
GEOGRAPHIC: UNITED STATES (87%); GERMANY (70%)
LOAD-DATE: July 18, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Correction
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

572 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
July 18, 2008 Friday

The New York Times on the Web

Museum and Gallery Listings
BYLINE: By THE NEW YORK TIMES
SECTION: Section ; Column 0; Movies, Performing Arts/Weekend Desk; Pg.
LENGTH: 5668 words
ART

Museums and galleries are in Manhattan unless otherwise noted. Full reviews of recent art shows: nytimes.com/art.

Museums

AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM: 'ASA AMES: OCCUPATION SCULPTURING,' through Sept. 14. This first show devoted to the American sculptor Asa Ames (1823-1851) is a gem. Its eight carved and painted wood portraits -- roughly two-thirds of the work of Ames's brief maturity -- introduce an artist who translated the style of self-taught American portrait painters into three dimensions, imbuing their artificiality with the sense of suspended life found in 19th-century photography. A crowded, wonderfully bizarre photograph that Ames orchestrated of himself, his work and a friend is a poignant tribute to his ambition. 45 West 53rd Street, [phone], folkartmuseum.org. (Roberta Smith)

AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM: 'DARGERISM: CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS AND HENRY DARGER,' through Sept. 21. The great Outsider Henry Darger (1892-1973) was completely unknown as an artist during his own lifetime. Now his epic adventure, ''The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion'' is famous and a big influence on mainstream artists. This intriguing exhibition presents 12 of Darger's gorgeous, bizarre watercolors and works by 11 contemporary artists who have been inspired by him, including Justine Kurland, Trenton Doyle Hancock and, most surprisingly, Paula Rego. (See above.) (Ken Johnson)

AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM: 'EARL CUNNINGHAM'S AMERICA,' through Sept. 7. The folk artist Earl Cunningham (1893-1977) romanticized the American landscape without hyperbole. Cunningham didn't suffuse his paintings with divine light or invoke manifest destiny, like the Hudson River School artists; he simply showed the many small interactions of the Atlantic coastal ecosystem -- a delicate balance of dock workers, harbor pilots, fishermen, farmers, waterfowl and American Indian tribes. Some 50 of his cheerful, intensely colored paintings are on view at the Lincoln Square branch of the American Folk Art Museum. Whether you think of Cunningham as a folk artist or a Modernist, his paintings display an intuitive grace. 2 Lincoln Square, Columbus Avenue between 65th and 66th Streets. [phone], folkartmuseum.org. (Karen Rosenberg)

ASIA SOCIETY AND MUSEUM: 'ARDESHIR MOHASSESS: ART AND SATIRE IN IRAN,' through Aug. 3. Given that his work is found in newspapers and magazines as well as on gallery walls, Westerners might tend to think of Ardeshir Mohassess, in the simplest terms, as Iran's answer to Saul Steinberg. His drawings have been published in The New York Times, as well as in The Nation and Playboy. Yet they are more ambiguous than typical op-ed illustrations and more subtle than most political cartoons. Some 70 of his works are on view in a show assembled by the Iranian-born artists Shirin Neshat and Nicky Nodjoumi. In Mr. Mohassess's drawings the coded beauty of traditional Persian art comes face to face with the ugliness of successive autocratic regimes. 725 Park Avenue, at 70th Street, [phone], asiasociety.org. (Rosenberg)

ASIA SOCIETY AND MUSEUM: 'VIETNAM: A MEMORIAL WORK BY JUN NGUYEN-HATSUSHIBA,'through Aug. 3. In a dreamily allegorical video by this Vietnamese artist, six young men struggle to pedal and drag three pedicabs across the sandy and rocky bottom of a shallow sea. Unequipped with breathing apparatus, they periodically swim to the surface for air before resuming their Sisyphean task. Near the end they abandon their burdens and swim away, in a lovely image of submarine flight. (See above.) (Johnson)

BROOKLYN MUSEUM: 'CLICK! A CROWD-CURATED EXHIBITION,' through Aug. 10. Inspired by ''The Wisdom of Crowds'' by the business writer James Surowiecki, ''Click!'' is more of a sociological experiment than a conventional photography show. Photographers submitted their pictures to the museum Web site for online appraisal by any and all comers. The 78 top-ranked pictures are now on display in a small gallery at the museum. Is the crowd a better judge of artistic merit than an individual expert? You be the judge. 200 Eastern Parkway, at Prospect Park, [phone], brooklynmuseum.org. (Johnson)

INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY: 'BILL WOOD'S BUSINESS,' through Sept. 7. Bill Wood Jr. was a commercial photographer who operated in Fort Worth from 1937 to 1970. Twenty years ago Diane Keaton, the film actress, photographer and photography collector, purchased 20,000 negatives left over from his business, and now 210 of those images are on display in this fascinating, compact exhibition. Mr. Wood photographed babies, pets, weddings, dead people in their coffins, retirement parties and recitals. For local businesses he shot grocery displays, new cars, new houses, oven knobs and prayer books. All his images are lucid and banal yet curiously affecting -- often inadvertently funny, sad or strange. 1133 Avenue of the Americas, at 43rd Street, [phone], icp.org. (Johnson)

INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY: 'HEAVY LIGHT: RECENT PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO FROM JAPAN,' through Sept. 7. The first large museum survey of Japanese photography in this country in decades feels a bit phoned in. About half of its 13 artists are ready for international exposure, adeptly covering the bases of landscape, portraiture and still life in different ways. But all provide useful glimpses of Japanese life and culture today, including a tendency to prolong adolescence and a nearly inescapable penchant for artifice or its more exalted manifestation, style. (See above.) (Smith)

THE JEWISH MUSEUM: 'ACTION/ABSTRACTION: POLLOCK, DE KOONING AND AMERICAN ART, 1940-1976,' through Sept. 21. With the help of some stupendous paintings and a beautiful installation, the same old story of postwar American painting's glory is told a new way: through the rivalry between its most prominent advocates, the art critics Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg and through their intellectual milieu. 1109 Fifth Avenue, at 92nd Street, [phone], thejewishmuseum.org. (Smith)

THE JEWISH MUSEUM: 'WARHOL'S JEWS: TEN PORTRAITS RECONSIDERED,' through Aug. 3. In 1980 Andy Warhol produced a series of portraits of famous Jews, including Sigmund Freud, Gertrude Stein and the Marx Brothers. When they appeared at the Jewish Museum that year, the critics hated them. But they were warmly received by Jewish audiences when they were exhibited in museums and Jewish institutions around the country. Viewing them in this return engagement, it is hard to imagine anyone growing very excited for or against such bland, posterlike images. (See above.) (Johnson)

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: 'ART OF THE ROYAL COURT: TREASURES IN PIETRE DURE FROM THE PALACES OF EUROPE,' through Sept. 21. Pietre dure -- one of the most eye-boggling collaborations of man and nature -- is the superfine inlay (mostly on furniture) or small sculpture made from semiprecious stones. Its first extensive survey should appeal to rock hounds and the art-fixated alike. It is a sumptuous sprawl of 170 objects from around the late-16th century to the early-19th century. Most reflect the styles, tastes and princely whims of their times and are, to say the least, nexuses of extraordinary allure, prestige and let-them-eat-cake presumption. This show is a stealth blockbuster. [phone], metmuseum.org. (Smith)

THE MET: 'FRAMING A CENTURY: MASTER PHOTOGRAPHERS, 1840-1940,' through Sept. 1. Organized by Malcolm Daniel, curator of the Met's photography department, this show examines the medium's first great century through extensive looks at 13 innovators. It proceeds majestically from stillness to motion, from landscape and ruin to city, from people frozen in studio poses to people on the move. William Henry Fox Talbot is at one end, Brassai is at the other. All used the camera to find bigness in themselves, in the new medium and, above all, in the world. (See above.) (Smith)

THE MET: 'JEFF KOONS ON THE ROOF,' through Oct. 26. Panoramic views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline from the Cantor Roof Garden are distracting, but the three sculptures now on display there are well worth visiting. Each is a greatly enlarged, glossily lacquered, stainless-steel representation of something small: a toy dog made of twisted-together balloons; a Valentine heart wrapped in red foil; and the silhouette of Piglet from a Winnie the Pooh coloring book randomly colored, as if by a young child. (See above.) (Johnson)

THE MET: 'J. M. W. TURNER,' through Sept. 21. Unbelievably, this gathering of nearly 150paintings and watercolors is the first major American retrospective of this great British landscape painter. It provides a sweeping account of Turner's work; his debt to Poussin and Claude Lorrain; his reinvention of history painting; his DeMillean views of Venice; his determined proto-abstract depiction of heavy weather of all kinds, all the while swinging back and forth between overblown and moving, inspired and mechanical. Turner's ambition seems to exclude all else, including the viewer, which gives the work an oddly imperious, impersonal tone. It may explain why you can emerge from the show impressed by the majesty of his vision and yet oddly untouched, even chilled. (See above.) (Smith)

THE MET: 'MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE TREASURES FROM THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM,' through Aug. 17. This beautiful exhibition presents a diverse assortment of 34 small, choice objects from one of the world's great repositories of European decorative arts. The showstopper is an eight-inch-tall Virgin and Child made of boxwood by the German sculptor Veit Stoss around 1500-05. The carving is done with such tenderness and delicacy that it seems as if the wood had been animated by some magical spirit. (See above.) (Johnson)

THE MET: 'TIBETAN ARMS AND ARMOR FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION,' through fall 2009. The paradox of militant Buddhism inspired the Metropolitan's fascinating 2006 exhibition ''Warriors of the Himalayas: Rediscovering the Arms and Armor of Tibet.'' Now Donald LaRocca, the museum's arms and armor curator, has created a follow-up installation of 35 objects from the Met's collection (including 5 acquired in 2007). This time the focus is on defense rather than offense: examples of horse and body armor, dating from the 15th through the 20th centuries, outnumber swords, guns and spears. Most of these objects have seen more ceremonial than military action. All of them equate supreme craftsmanship with defense of the body and Buddhist principles. (See above.) (Rosenberg)

THE MET: 'RADIANCE FROM THE RAIN FOREST,' through Sept. 1. This exhibition supplements the Met's rarely displayed holdings of Peruvian featherwork with examples borrowed from public and private collections, including those of the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History. It's the kind of specialized yet accessible show that only the Met can pull off. Most of the works on view were made between the 7th and 16th centuries, before the Spanish conquest of Peru. Contemporary viewers can nonetheless appreciate the way feathers conveyed wealth, status and sheer animal magnetism. Included are wall hangings, personal ornaments and ritual objects; the extraordinarily well-preserved feathers come from parrots, tanagers and other birds of the Amazonian jungle. (See above.) (Rosenberg)

MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM: 'ILLUMINATING THE MEDIEVAL HUNT,' through Aug. 10. As part of a conservation effort, the Morgan Library's 14th-century hunting manuscript ''Le Livre de la Chasse'' has been temporarily unbound, affording viewers a rare opportunity to study the individual pages. Fifty illustrated leaves are on view in this show, along with other manuscripts and printed books from the 11th to the 16th century. Gaston Phoebus's authoritative text examines the characteristics of various wild animals, explores different methods of hunting and provides instruction on caring for hounds. ''Le Livre de la Chasse'' was written for medieval aristocrats, but it will appeal to contemporary athletes, nature lovers and dog owners. 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street, [phone], themorgan.org. (Rosenberg)

MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM: 'PHILIP GUSTON: WORKS ON PAPER,' through Aug. 31. This enthralling exhibition of 100 works, mostly drawings, tracks Guston's evolution from his Abstract Expressionist efforts of the 1950s to his darkly comic and hugely influential representational pictures of the 1970s. While he went through several radical stylistic changes over those three decades, a determination to work from basic instincts and primal feelings runs throughout, giving the show a powerful autobiographical momentum. (See above.) (Johnson)

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART: 'DALI: PAINTING AND FILM,' through Sept. 15. Salvador Dali's lifelong preoccupation with film -- so perfectly suited to his hyper-real Surrealist painting -- spanned nearly his entire career, from the groundbreaking ''Chien Andalou'' to little-known works from the 1960s and '70s that capture an early Happening by Dali or presage appropriation art of the 1980s. This exhibition skillfully mixes a sizable number of paintings and drawings with continuous screenings of several films, including the dream sequence from Alfred Hitchcock's ''Spellbound.'' Because many of Dali's film projects did not come to fruition, the show gives you an unusually intimate sense of his artistic process and his artistic imagination, which was always on fast-forward. [phone], moma.org. (Smith)

NATIONAL ACADEMY MUSEUM: 'THE 183RD ANNUAL: AN INVITATIONAL EXHIBITION OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ART,' through Sept. 7. If you emerged from the Whitney Biennial wondering where all the painting went, don't despair. At this exhibition abstract painting reigns, sculpture is small and nonthreatening, and photography is practically nonexistent. It's not quite the art world memorialized in the current show ''Action/Abstraction'' at the Jewish Museum, but the critics Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg would find plenty to argue about. This year's show is a nonmember affair. (Alternate years are members only.) 1083 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street, [phone], nationalacademy.org. (Rosenberg)

NEUE GALERIE: 'WIENER WERKSTaTTE JEWELRY,' through Sept. 1. Founded in 1903, the Wiener Werkstatte, or Vienna Workshops, set out to prove that the modern world still needed fine craftsmanship and good design. Its first product was jewelry, of which this stunning exhibition presents 40 gorgeous examples. Works in gold, silver and semi-precious stones by the workshop's co-founders, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, and others -- including, most notably, Dagobert Peche -- magically blur the line between personal ornament and miniature sculpture. 1048 Fifth Avenue, at 86th Street, [phone], neuegalerie.org. (Johnson)

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES LIBRARY: 'EMINENT DOMAIN: CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE CITY,' through Aug. 29. This show highlights recent work by five New York artists: Thomas Holton, Bettina Johae, Reiner Leist, Zoe Leonard and Ethan Levitas. None are street photographers in the conventional sense. Broadly speaking, the exhibition is a series of responses to change in the city (the source of which might be anything from gentrification to globalization). Weaving the five projects together is an autobiographical text by the artist Glenn Ligon, ''Housing in New York: A Brief History'' (2007), in which he reminisces about the various New York City apartments he has occupied over the course of his life. Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, [phone], nypl.org. (Rosenberg)

* P.S. 1 CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER: 'ARCTIC HYSTERIA: NEW ART FROM FINLAND,' through Sept. 15. Urgent emotions and mystical fantasies animate otherwise coolly controlled works in this terrific 16-artist show. See especially Veli Grano's heartbreaking documentary portrait of a Finnish couple who believe that their unborn child was taken by aliens to live on a planet in the Sirius star system, and Salla Tykka's dreamy short film in which a young female voyeur is overwhelmed by the sight of an athletic, bare-chested young man spinning a lasso in a suburban house. 22-25 Jackson Avenue, at 46th Street, Long Island City, Queens, [phone], ps1.org. (Johnson)

SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN: 'REMIX: NEW MODERNITIES IN A POST-INDIAN WORLD,' through Sept. 21. This exhibition argues that for many young American Indian artists, being Indian does not necessarily determine who or what they are and does not oblige them to produce a certifiably Indian style. Presenting works by 15 artists of at least partly Indian descent, the show includes videos, abstract and representational paintings, imitation folk art sculptures and photographs. Some works obviously are about Indian identity; others are not. The most conspicuous overall influence is what you might call art school postmodernism. National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center, One Bowling Green, Lower Manhattan, [phone], americanindian.si.edu. (Johnson)

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART: 'PAUL MCCARTHY: CENTRAL SYMMETRICAL ROTATION MOVEMENT: THREE INSTALLATIONS, TWO FILMS,' through Oct. 12. Mr. McCarthy's fans are in for a shock. They will find almost nothing of what this Los Angeles master of transgressive provocation is famous for in this smart, tightly focused exhibition of works dating from 1966 to the present. No psychotic clowning, no pornographic vaudeville. Instead they will discover Mr. McCarthy's art stripped to its bare, abstract yet still metaphorically resonant essentials. The main attractions are two scarily mechanized rooms and a walk-in enclosure dizzyingly animated by feedback loops from four rotating video cameras. [phone], whitney.org. (Johnson)

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART: 'POLAROIDS: MAPPLETHORPE,' through Sept. 7. During his 20s, between 1970 and 1975, Robert Mapplethorpe made more than 1,500 photographs with Polaroid cameras. This may surprise viewers who are more familiar with his posed and polished studio photography of the '80s. ''Polaroids: Mapplethorpe'' offers about 100 examples drawn largely from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, including portraits, still lifes, erotica and works that fall into more than one of these categories. All the themes of Mapplethorpe's mature work -- the body as a site of pain and pleasure, the ideals of classical beauty, the celebration of alternative lifestyles -- are here, but rendered in a more spontaneous medium. (See above.) (Rosenberg)

Galleries: Uptown

'QUIET POLITICS' Works in this elegant group show express political impulses through understated means. '' 'Untitled' Fear'' by Felix Gonzalez-Torres is a Minimalist box made of blue-tinted mirrors. David Hammons's African-American flag -- the Stars and Stripes in black, red and green -- is a sly rejoinder to Jasper Johns's flag paintings. Michael Brown's stainless-steel simulation of a cracked mirror freezes an act of anarchy into a lovely, lacey web. Zwirner & Wirth, 32 East 69th Street, [phone], zwirnerandwirth.com, through Aug. 29. (Johnson)

'ROAD WORKS' This rich selection of comic drawings, paintings and sculptures about life on the road features works by more than two dozen artists, including H. C. Westermann, Saul Steinberg and the great outsider Joseph Yoakum. Adam Baumgold Gallery, 74 East 79th Street, [phone], adambaumgoldgallery.com, through Aug. 15. (Johnson)

Galleries: 57th Street

'DEEP COMEDY' Mysteriously humorous highlights of this group show include John Wesley's painting of Donald Duck giving birth and Vija Celmins's painting of a steaming electric frying pan. A video by Michael Smith and Joshua White about a fictitious wellness center spoofs New Age entrepreneurship. Christian Jankowski's mock-documentary film in which nonprofessional child actors play famous artists discussing their works satirizes art-world language and customs to surprisingly touching effect. Marian Goodman, 24 West 57th Street, [phone], mariangoodman.com, through July 30. (Johnson)

JESS: 'PAINTINGS AND PASTE-UPS' For anyone unfamiliar with Jess (1923-2004), the visionary artist who emerged from the San Francisco Beat scene in the 1950s, this compact, 40-year survey will be a good introduction. It includes big, cosmic collages made under the influence of Max Ernst and mysterious, extraordinarily thickly painted pictures of scientific instruments that are among the oddest and most original artworks of the post-World War II era. Tibor de Nagy, 724 Fifth Avenue, [phone], tibordenagy.com, through July 31. (Johnson)

Galleries: SoHo

DAWN MELLOR: 'A CURSE ON YOUR WALLS' Large canvases illustrating scenes from a punk, post-apocalyptic version of ''The Wizard of Oz'' by this English painter are darkly comical and rousingly ambitious. In the rear gallery hang 71 portraits of famous people and celebrities who, with painterly panache, Ms. Mellor has subjected to all kinds of comic, bizarre and horrific transformations. Team, 83 Grand Street, between Wooster and Greene Streets, [phone], teamgallery.com, through Aug. 8. (Johnson)

FRANCISCO DE GOYA: 'LOS DESASTRES DE LA GUERRA (THE DISASTERS OF WAR)' No artist before or since Goya has depicted the domino-effect devastation that warfare visits upon a land, its people and their moral fiber with such precision, formal invention and pathos. His 80 etchings, made between 1810 and 1820 in response to the French invasion of Spain and the subsequent Spanish War of Independence, are more unblinking and pertinent than ever. It is amazing to see them lining the walls of this simple space, especially given its location in a neighborhood that is now synonymous with shopaholic oblivion. Peter Blum Gallery, 99 Wooster Street, near Spring Street, SoHo, [phone], peterblumgallery.com, through Aug. 1. (Smith)

Galleries: Chelsea

MAT COLLISHAW: 'DELIVERANCE' In the darkness of Mr. Collishaw's technically tricky but stirring installation, photographic images continually and unpredictably flash and fade away here and there on all four walls. The black-and-white, near life-size images show men and women carrying half-naked children out of nocturnal backgrounds. It's as if you were in the midst of some great human calamity -- or dreaming of one. Tanya Bonakdar, 521 West 21st Street, [phone], tanyabonakdargallery.com, through July 31. (Johnson)

'CROP ROTATION' The most impressive piece in this perplexing group show, organized by the independent curator Clarissa Dalrymple, is a pair of enormous black circles painted by Neil Campbell in a corner of the main gallery. Giving the illusion of openings into infinite space, they suggest Anish Kapoor on a low budget. Don't miss Jeffrey Wells's video projection of an almost invisible line wavering in another corner of the gallery. Marianne Boesky Gallery, 509 West 24th Street, [phone], marianneboeskygallery.com, through Aug. 15. (Johnson)

'GEOMETRY AS IMAGE' In this show geometry encompasses, by turns, organic eccentricity (John Duff, Julie Mehretu), chaos (Joel Schapiro), serene chaos (Al Held), measurement (Mel Bochner and Andy Spence), rhythm (Keith Sonnier), electrical towers (Walter Niedermayr), barcode stripes (Paul Miller), big polystyrene squares (Nils Folke Anderson) and amazing optical patterns in three dimensions that might have been made 40 years ago but are still fun to look at (John Pai). Robert Miller Gallery, 524 West 26th Street, [phone], robertmillergallery.com, through July 30. (Smith)

ZHANG HUAN: 'BLESSINGS' An erstwhile Chinese performance artist, now working with the help of well-trained assistants in his Shanghai studio, shows two gigantic works. An enormous rag doll covered with whole cowhides conforms to the main festivalist-art formula: take a familiar form, make it really big, use unexpected material already charged with meaning. A Communist-era photograph is rendered enormous in incense ash on tall blocks of ash. Along with smaller photo-based works that ruin fantastic antique doors, these pieces voice an all-too-common mantra: ''I'm doing this because I can hire someone else to do it.'' Pace Wildenstein, 534 West 25th Street, [phone], and 545 West 22nd Street, [phone], pacewildenstein.com, through July 26. (Smith)

'I WONT GROW UP' Artworks that appear to be made for or by children make up this entertaining 30-artist show. Mark Fox's video ''Nutzilla,'' in which a giant Mr. Peanut violently attacks the Cincinnati Art Museum, is hilarious. George Stoll's hand-made, child-size costumes, one a skeleton and the other a clown, are delicately evocative. Tim Liddy's painted simulation of an old Twister game box is an extraordinary feat of trompe l'oeil realism. Cheim & Read, 547 West 25th Street, [phone], cheimread.com, through Aug. 29. (Johnson)

ANISH KAPOOR This Indian-born sculptor, based in London, inaugurates the Gladstone Gallery's handsome new exhibition space with a dazzling if trick-prone exhibition of three polished-steel geometric volumes and one curved wall made of highly reflective polished steel. They look a bit like immobilized mercury, but their surfaces are anything but. As you move around them, they move too. You investigate the nature of their always curved surfaces by watching the reflections ooze and mutate. Space, architecture, light, the other works and whoever else is present are all implicated. Gladstone Gallery, 530 West 21st Street, [phone], gladstonegallery.com, through Aug. 15. (Smith)

TETSUMI KUDO This show introduces the Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudo (1935-1990) with 26 derisively beautiful, macabre sculptures that examine the human condition and find it wanting. Fluorescent colors and mutant forms (plants sprouting phalluses) convey a post-apocalyptic tone not surprising for an artist in postwar Japan. ''Survival of the Avant-Garde'' (1985) is a plastic skull whose body has melted into a swirl of brightly colored thread, possibly because of an atom bomb. Several works in birdcages involve distorted faces and spidery hands, which evoke the eccentrics and grotesques of Japanese folklore, but Mr. Kudo also fits in all over the map of Neo-Dada and its discontents. Andrea Rosen Gallery, 525 West 24th Street, [phone], andrearosengallery.com, through Aug. 15. (Smith)

'NOT SO SUBTLE SUBTITLE' Selected by the artist Matthew Bannon, this intermittently absorbing, often puzzling show of mostly small works on paper by 24 artists has an insiderish feel. It includes Christopher Williams's photograph of the blank white back cover of an exhibition catalog; John Stezaker's collages in which postcards depicting rocks are pasted over film stills of lovers; and Nick Mauss's small abstractions made by scratching through aluminum leaf into black gesso grounds. Casey Kaplan, 525 West 21st Street, [phone], caseykaplangallery.com, through Aug. 1. (Johnson)

'RETROSPECTIVE' With Marcel Duchamp's miniature career survey in a briefcase as its centerpiece, this sprawling group show presents works by various artists that function as compendiums of their earlier efforts. One fascinating room presents written and photographic documentation of all the performances that Chris Burden did from 1971 to '73. Another has all the films and videos that Douglas Gordon has produced since 1992, running on 50 monitors. Gagosian Gallery, 522 West 21st Street, [phone], gagosian.com, through Aug. 22. (Johnson)

'THE STRANGER' Seven sculptures by as many artists cast an existentialist spell. Richard Jackson's ''Big Baby,'' a large, yellow smiley face made of shiny plastic, has pudgy, humanoid limbs. Berlinde de Bruyckere's wax torso in an old vitrine looks like a remnant of a medieval sculpture crossed with a slab of meat. George Segal's blue woman at a cafe table reads from the novel by Albert Camus that gives the show its title. Yvon Lambert, 550 West 21st Street, [phone], yvon-lambert.com, through July 31. (Johnson)

Galleries: Other

'DECOYS, COMPLEXES, AND TRIGGERS: FEMINISM AND LAND ART IN THE 1970S' This exhibition highlights female artists who overlapped with the movements of Land Art and Post-Minimalism. That's ''Feminism and Land Art,'' not ''Feminist Land Art''; many of the women in this show preferred not to be identified as ''feminist'' artists. Their work bears a closer resemblance to that of Robert Smithson and Richard Serra than to most of the body- and craft-centric art in surveys like ''Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution'' at P.S. 1. The show consists of about 50 works by 10 artists, including Alice Aycock, Lynda Benglis, Nancy Holt and Mary Miss, and suggests that the '70s are far from exhausted (especially where works by women are concerned). The SculptureCenter, 44-19 Purves Street, Long Island City, Queens, [phone], sculpture-center.org, through July 28. (Rosenberg)

CLIFF EVANS: 'EMPYREAN' Short and mesmerizing, Mr. Evans's digitally animated video ''Empyrean'' presents surrealistic scenes of war, tourism and industrial development, populated by soldiers, movie stars, pornOk as an adjective, per ron./lg models, construction workers, terrorists, politicians and other figures lifted from mass-media sources. As the view moves slowly through panoramic desert and mountain landscapes, it is as if God were surveying the mess humankind has made of the world. Luxe Gallery, 53 Stanton Street, at Eldridge Street, Lower East Side, [phone], luxegallery.net, through July 26. (Johnson)

'PERSONAL PROTOCOLS AND OTHER PREFERENCES: AN EXHIBITION WITH WORKS BY MICHAEL BEUTLER, ESRA ERSEN AND KIRSTINE ROEPSTORFF/I'VE GOT SOMETHING IN MY EYE' Fun happens in these two exhibitions, one featuring three young artists, based in Berlin; the other selected from the Hessel Collection (with additions) by Bik Van der Pol, a pair of humorously inclined Dutch artists who have worked together since 1995. Combined, they provide monumental walls made of bright paper blocks to get past, newly built stairs to climb, unusual seating to try and art jokes to get. Luckily there is just enough seriousness to go around, with the videos in both exhibitions supplying some of the best moments. Center for Curatorial Studies/Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, [phone], www.bard.edu/ccs, through Sept. 7. (Smith)

TOM SACHS: 'BRONZE COLLECTION' Public sculptures, spaces and monuments, as well as form and function, are commented on and lampooned in bronze sculptures of everything from a greatly enlarged Hello Kitty, cast from the artist's characteristic patchwork foam core and painted white, to lighter-looking versions of Le Corbusier's classic thigh-high cast-concrete street lamps from the 1950s. The routine realism of other bronze pieces involving car batteries, skateboarders' quarterpipes and a Dumpster seem out of step with Mr. Sachs's usual artisanal quirkiness. He's nothing if he's not cute. Lever House, 390 Park Avenue, at 53rd Street, [phone], through Sept. 6. (Smith)

Public Art

'THE NEW YORK CITY WATERFALLS'Walt Whitman would be pleased. The four waterfalls that the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson has temporarily insinuated along Whitman's beloved East River (one on Manhattan, two in Brooklyn, a fourth on Governors Island) tweak the ecstatic experience of city life that is especially palpable at water's edge. Forming a mammoth yet oddly discreet work of shoreline land art, they are spectacular only in the cumulative sense, although the top level of Pier 17 at the South Street Seaport is a great place from which to pick out all four. Their scaffoldings and standard New York apartment riser pipes make them, strictly speaking, fountains. But they are also mirages that add uncanny signs of a primordial Eden that never was. Faking natural history with basic plumbing, they form little rips in the urban fabric through which you glimpse hints of a lost paradise, and sharpen your sense of Whitman's, the one you are already in. Pier 35 in Lower Manhattan, the eastern foot of the Brooklyn Bridge; between Piers 4 and 5 near the Brooklyn Heights Promenade; north shore of Governors Island; nycwaterfalls.org, through Oct. 13. (Smith)

Last Chance

'NEW YORK COOL: PAINTING AND SCULPTURE FROM THE N.Y.U. ART COLLECTION' This exhibition subjects the late '50s and early '60s -- a period normally seen as a transitional phase between Abstract Expressionism and Pop, Pollock and Warhol -- to intense scrutiny. It reintroduces minor characters like Seymour Lipton, Robert Goodnough and Conrad Marca-Relli, and exposes hidden sides of well-known artists (Miriam Schapiro's early geometric abstraction). It reminds us that the art world of that time was a multifarious scene shaped by artists beyond Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Grey Art Gallery, New York University, 100 Washington Square East, Greenwich Village, [phone], nyu.edu/greyart; closes on Saturday. (Rosenberg)

'WHO'S AFRAID OF JASPER JOHNS?' Demonically aerobic for the brain and eye, this rambunctious show, orchestrated by the art dealer Gavin Brown and the artist Urs Fischer, conflates two group exhibitions and several decades (but mostly the 1980s and since), styles, art markets and notions of transgression. Highly site-specific, it may also be one of the last words in appropriation art, institutional critique and artistic intervention, not to mention post-modern photographs and, especially, wallpaper. Nearly every juxtaposition tells a story, one that is up to you to devise. The network of references unleashed here defies any visual or interpretive cartography, which may make its exploration all the more worthwhile. Tony Shafrazi Gallery, 544 West 26th Street, [phone], tonyshafrazigallery.com; closes on Friday. (Smith)