Kelly Heaton
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts; through 10/27; 31 Mercer St., nr. Grand St.; 212-226-3232
Sculptor, seer, scientist, and spiritualist, Heaton gives us a glimpse into the ghost in the machine through small-scale, intricately wired, wall-mounted abstract tangles generating sounds of the world: chirps, insect calls, rainfall, and a beating heart.
Picasso in Black and White
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; ongoing; 1071 Fifth Ave., at 89th St., 212-423-3500
Before Picasso, few painters depicted the world without color. This thrilling show of more than 100 works will put forward his massive graphic power and also demonstrate how much can be done with little. Socks will be knocked off.
Tatzu Nishi
Columbus Circle; through 11/18; Central Park West, at 59th St.
For “Discovering Columbus,” the Bloomberg administration is letting Nishi loft a living room 70 feet in the air, bringing us all nearly eye-to-eye with the overlooked sculpture.
Ferdinand Hodler: View to Infinity
Neue Galerie; through 1/7; 1048 Fifth Ave., at 86th St.; 212-628-6200
You may not know his name, but without this Swiss-born Symbolist, we might not have had Klimt or Schiele.
Mark Grotjahn
Gagosian Gallery; through 10/27; 980 Madison Ave., nr. 77th St.; 212-744-2313
The already excellent painter Mark Grotjahn has transformed himself into a pretty good painterly sculptor. At Gagosian, he’s showing a series of juicy-looking bronzes of masks or heads or faces and simple totem-pole figures cast from cardboard boxes.
Alix Pearlstein
On Stellar Rays; through 10/21; 133 Orchard St., nr. Delancy St.;
Pearlstein mixes behavioral psychology, modern dance, art history, comedy, drama, and a wicked sense of voyeurism to make viewers wonder what’s real and what’s feigned in these handsome, squirm-inducing wraparound projections.
Thomas Hirschhorn
Barbara Gladstone Gallery; through 10/20; 515 W. 24th St., nr. Tenth Ave.; 212-206-9300
The capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia—its tacky furnishings evoked in this gallery installation—makes a perfect analog for “too big to fail.”