Curated by Neville Wakefield

Holbein, Dürer, Cranach, Schongauer, Baldung Grien . . . Matthew Barney: an unorthodox lineup, to be sure, but not necessarily an unnatural one (think perfervid narratives of suffering flesh and transubstantiation). Occasioned by the Laurenz Foundation’s acquisition of a number of works from Barney’s series “Drawing Restraint,” 1987–, this show marshals religious paintings, woodcuts, and engravings by the unimpeachable greats of the Northern Renaissance, bringing into “dialogue” iconography from the fourteen Stations of the Cross and elements of the (thus far) sixteen parts of “DR.” What will Cranach’s Head of Christ with Crown of Thorns, ca. 1509, have to say to Barney’s Occidental Guest? (And in Herzog & de Meuron’s capacious temple to the contemporary, no less.) The ensuing apotheosis might just give Barney a Jesus complex.

— David Velasco

Curated by Dieter Buchhart

Before he appeared on the cover of the New York Times Magazine in paint-splattered Armani, Jean-Michel Basquiat sold handmade postcards outside the Met and covered the walls of downtown Manhattan with his SAMO script. But in the years since his premature death in 1988, the numerous exhibitions of his work have privileged his later paintings over this early, more ephemeral output. The Beyeler is out to change all that, with a retrospective that emphasizes the art Basquiat made before 1983. More than one hundred drawings and paintings will take on the foundation’s serene Renzo Piano–designed lines, from dynamic language-based compositions in spray paint, crayon, paint stick, and Xerox to a rarely exhibited series of collages from 1979 and 1980—when Basquiat was still SAMO. Travels to the Musée d’Arte Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Oct. 15, 2010–Jan. 30, 2011.

— Jordana Moore Saggese