Art

Jasper Johns
May 7-June 25
Matthew Marks Gallery, 522 W 22nd, 212-243-0200.

The 800-pound gorilla of living artists is having his first solo exhibition in New York since the '96 MOMA retrospective. Frozen in the encaustic shadow of his early flag and target masterpieces, the septuagenarian painter will perhaps (like Titian) find in late life more sublime depths than his middle-period "Four Seasons" or flagstones ever achieved. With new paintings, drawings, and prints, this is a show overflowing with anticipation.

Andy Warhol
May 15-April 2006
Dia: Beacon, 3 Beekman St, Beacon, NY, 845-440-0100. Escape the city for a verdant early-summer drive. Head upstate to Beacon, where Dia mounts a show of Warhol's large "Skull" paintings and a selection derived from his "Disaster" series of car crashes and suicides. Andy was always best when he was darkest; you'll feel like you never left Gotham.

Jackie Matisse
May 21-June 24
Zone Chelsea, 601 W 26th, 212-255-2177.

Matisse possesses a regal artistic legacy—bright colors and bold compositions from her grandfather Henri and conceptual whimsy from her stepfather, Marcel Duchamp—and makes paintings in the sky with handcrafted kites trailing vibrant tails. These are shown along with tiny streamers and other objects in bottles (she assisted Duchamp in assembling his "portable museums"), plus a virtual reality Cave where viewers can use wands to make the kites move.