Preview: summer '98.

Three times a year Artforum looks ahead to the coming season. The following survey previews forty-four shows opening around the world between May 1 and August 31 and reports on news and initiatives at contemporary-art venues as well as upcoming public projects.

Tony Smith MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

Thanks to his prominent position in Kynaston McShine's "Primary Structures, "the 1966 Jewish Museum exhibition that sent Minimalism into orbit, Tony Smith has been rather randomly lumped in with that movement. A decade older than Judd and Andre, he was actually closer in age to the second-generation Abstract Expressionists; in this first retrospective since his death in 1980, one should be able to explore any affinities he shared with that loose group before he moved on to the style for which we know him best. The exhibition, organized by MoMA curator Robert Storr, consulting architecture curator John Keenan, and the Public Art Fund's Tom Eccles, will devote considerable attention to Smith's work as an architect: "He was a true polymath," remarks Storr. "His principles of form apply across the board." July 1-Sept. 22.

Aleksandr Rodchenko MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

Aleksandr Rodchenko rejected the introspective mysticism of Suprematism and envisioned a future shaped by artist-engineers and proletarian consumers. It didn't happen, and today his sharp graphic ads for cigarettes and beer are wildly at odds with our vision of the worker-as-victim-of-consumerism; his brilliantly composed advertisements for the state are compromised by the fact that the happy workers he portrays are all too often forced laborers, and his utopian ideals proved sounder in theory than practice. Still, Rodchenko remains a sentimental favorite. In this show of 318 works, organized by Peter Galassi and Magdalena Dabrowski with art historian Leah Dickerman, the formalist's style speaks of innovation and hope, and we're all nostalgic for the idea of a future. June 25-Oct. 6.

Gordon Matta-Clark: Drawings and Projects P.S. 1

Gordon Matra-Clark's early death and the typically ephemeral nature of his most famous (and radical) works have conspired to leave the artist's achievement somewhat murky. This show, which takes up the Generali Foundation's retrospective of his drawings, often prepared as studies for architectural interventions, should help clear matters up. Perhaps his least-known work, the drawings veer between straightforward diagrams and blatantly fantastic, often vividly colored projections in ink or marker. Select projects by the artist are also being re-created, including the notorious Cut, originally installed at the institution in 1976, and another proposal is being executed for the first time: a wrap enveloping the entire P.S. 1. The artist's films will also be screened. May 1-June 28.

Charles Ray WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

Along with artists such as Robert Gober and Katharina Fritsch, Charles Ray has salvaged the tradition of crafted, figurative sculpture by radically reconstituting the three-dimensional object as "image." Ray's tact has been to conflate a perception-oriented strain of Minimalism with elements of Pop, then to temper this strange alloy with his own unique version of object-relations psychology. Organized by MoCA chief curator Paul Schimmel, this midcareer retrospective of Ray's quirky oeuvre should allow the logic of the artist's development to unfold, offering a definitive look at the new, peculiarly hybrid genre of sculpture-as-image. June 4-Nov. 19; travels to Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Nov.- Feb. 1999; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Mar.-June 1999.

Louise Nevelson: Structures Evolving WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART 

Rather like Georgia O'Keeffe and Lucas Samaras, Louise Nevelson has become almost as famous for her wigged-out personal style as for her art. The Whitney retrospective - forty-three sculptures and drawings culled from the permanent collection by associate curator Beth Venn - will allow ample opportunity to focus on her art, tracing the Americanization of Schwitter's Merzbau (one obvious antecedent) as Nevelson moved from the black-, white-, and occasionally gold-painted assemblages for which she remains known to the incorporation of more unusual materials (e.g., Plexiglas, lucite, and epoxy) in her work from the '60s on. The real question before us is broached by the exhibition's title: How much do the structures really evolve? May 1-Sept.13.

The Art of the Motorcycle SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM 

The good news is that, come this summer, there will be motorcycles on the ramps of the Guggenheim's Frank Lloyd Wright building. The bad news is, no, they won't be smoking, screaming, and leaving skid marks on those nice white walls at 140 mph in the first annual motordrome Gran Prix de Thomas Krens (although the Guggenheim's director, a motorcycle enthusiast and curator of the show, probably did entertain the thought for a tenth of a second or so). Instead, the likes of a very early bike, a Hildebrand & Wolfmuller 1500cc manufactured in Germany in 1894, the beautiful Ducati 916, and the '50s best-selling Honda 50 Super Club - along with about eighty-five others - will just sit there, looking pretty. June 26-Sept. 12; travels to Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

Martin Wong NEW MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART 

The painter Martin Wong, whose vivid canvases are jam-packed with imagery taken from street scenes of the Lower East Side, had his last gallery show in New York in 1993 at P.P.O.W. Weakened by AIDS, Wong stopped painting shortly thereafter and moved back to California to live with his mother. Now, the former fixture of the '80s East Village scene is the subject of a midcareer retrospective, coorganized by Dan Cameron, senior curator at the New Museum, and Barry Blinderman, director of the University Galleries at Illinois State, where the show made its debut in January. Thirty-two paintings will be on display, and the catalogue features essays by the show's organizers as well as critics Carlo McCormick and Yasmin Ramirez. May 28-Sept. 13.

Mark Rothko NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

The National Gallery's Mark Rothko retrospective, based in part on its own outstanding holdings of the artist's work, will include 115 paintings and works on paper ranging from the '30s until the artist's death in 1970. Curated by the National's Jeffrey Weiss, the show traces Rothko's development from his early figurative expressionism through his mythographical explorations of the '40s and the floating zones of deep color that characterize his mature style - work that made him one of the most celebrated and influential forces in the midcentury triumph of American painting. The catalogue includes interviews with contemporary artists influenced by the painter. May 3-Aug. 16; travels to Whitney Museum of American Art, Sept. 10-Nov. 29, and Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, winter 1998-99.