Starting this thread so this board can have a running list of exhibits that people have found worthwhile and their reactions to them. Might be useful as people travel. I'd suggest not including things like "the permanent collection at the MoMA," but instead things that may be temporary or easy to miss, but YMMV. To start it off, the Amon Carter Museum in Ft. Worth has a great exhibit of color Farm Security Administration photos. Most people are familiar with the b&w's, especially those by Walker Evans and Dorthea Lange, but these are among the 1000 or so color photos. The colors are incredibly vivid and they stuck me far different than the B&W photos, especially in the prevalence of advertising. Almost every photo contains display ads for some consumer product, lots of beer and soda ads, even lots of ads decorating (and wall-papering) people's houses. The same museum has an exhibit running until January that puts Eliot Porter's (one of the Sierra Club's main photographers) photos side by side with Robert Ketchum's photos, showing how the former influenced the latter. I haven't seen it yet, but have heard very good things.
I don't know if the City Museum, in St. Louis, fits what you intended for this thread, but I think I'd consider an interesting permanent exhibit, albeit one that can be explored over, under, around, and through (as Grover said). http://www.citymuseum.org/home.asp
My wife and I attended a wedding and reception held at the New York Botanical Gardens this past month and I had the opportunity to see Dale Chihuly glass art exhibit. Quite interesting. Some pieces are quite beautiful. Others are quite garrish. http://images.google.com/imgres?img...firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N
There was a great progam on PBS about Chihuli and his team on PBS. He put up exibits in Ireland, Venice, Monterrey and Iceland (I think) all involving the local craftsmen and nothing looked alike. Really neat stuff.
Saw that too, but in the botanical gardens in St. Louis (my sister lives there). Your assessment is about right: a mixed bag.
Well Chihuly is out of the NYBG and the christmas train show is in. Actually quite a neat exhibit with many NYC landmarks made out of wood and moss and fungus and the like and scale trains running though them. Also was able to pick up a couple dozen cannoli on Arthur Avenue just before hand. Those things are art themselves.
bump The McNay Art Museum in San Antonio has an exhibit featuring works by Warhol and his contemporaries Jamie Wyeth and Jean-Michael Basquiat. Our other museum will also have an exhibit with works by Botero pretty soon.
If you're ever in Tacoma it's worth a trip to the glass museum. The collection is small but growing and they what I assume is a fairly rare permanent Chihuly installation. It's actually built into the ceiling of the pedestrian bridge, which is something he did at an installation I saw at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1996.
I went there back in October. It really depended when you see it. I went during the day and agree with your sister, a mixed bag. My brother went at night. The lighting added a whole new dimension. He said it was spectacular. We had an amazing Barcelona exhibit here at the Cleveland Art Museum, wholly underrated in the pantheon of American Museums. It focused on art, architecture, and furniture design from around 1900 until the end of the Civil War. An amazing exhibit.
The New York Botanical Garden has it's Orchid Show currently in the conservatory. It's a great show. A spectacular display of orchids.
I enjoyed the modernism show at the Corcoran in Washington, DC. http://www.corcoran.org/modernism/index.htm