The New York Times-20080127-Art

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Art

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Art

Nicolai Ouroussoff

For those nostalgic for a vision of Manhattan at its most innocent, STREET DANCE: THE NEW YORK PHOTOGRAPHS OF RUDY BURCKHARDT at the Museum of the City of New York will be a must. For many years Mr. Burckhardt chronicled the bustling avenues, gigantic billboards and ornate masonry towers that defined the modern metropolis at its most optimistic. The sweetness of these images, often broken by the enormous shadows cast by the city's towers, is hard to fathom today, a time when the city seems to have become a themed version of that past. Friday through April 13, Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, (212) 534-1672, mcny.org.

ARTE NO ES VIDA at El Museo del Barrio examines the intersection of art and political activism in Latin America from 1960 to 2000. A collection of photographs, videos and paintings by more than 75 artists, this show explores themes as disparate as civil war, military oppression and class conflict. The title is meant to suggest that art and everyday life, in such extreme circumstances, are worlds apart. Wednesday through June 1, 1230 Fifth Avenue, at 104th Street, East Harlem, (212) 831-7272, elmuseo.org.

THE WHITNEY'S COLLECTION, opening Wednesday at the Whitney Museum of American Art, is a chance to revisit old friends. The show, which includes familiar highlights from the permanent collection, jumps from early Modernism to the influence of the machine aesthetic on 20th-century art and includes masterpieces like Jasper Johns's Three Flags (1958). It is also an opportunity to contemplate the museum's core identity as it prepares to open a major branch downtown in the meatpacking district. Through June 1, 2009, 945 Madison Avenue, at 75th Street, (212) 570-3600, whitney.org.

[Illustration]PHOTO: Astor Place, a photograph from 1947 by Rudy Burckhardt. (PHOTOGRAPH BY TIBOR DE NAGY GALLERY)