From Jennifer Steinkamp's video installation "Premature" at Lehmann Maupin

Get your walking shoes and your autumn sweaters out. The fall art season has begun, and it promises to be more jam-packed than ever before. Sure, unemployment is threatening double digits again, and the Dow is mired at 10,000, but there is optimism in the New York art world. Believe it: this is going to be a great year. To the listings!
 

WEDNESDAY

"Act Up New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987-1993," at White Columns, through October 23, opening Wednesday, September 8, 6–8 p.m., whitecolumns.org

Boston ICA curator Helen Molesworth organized one of last year’s best season-openers, the reinterpretation of Allan Kaprow’s "Yard" that inaugurated Hauser & Wirth’s New York outpost. Now she’s going for a repeat, teaming with curator Claire Grace to present this exhaustive look at the inexhaustible political-art group ACT UP, a show that first appeared at Harvard. Queer artist collective fierce pussy has been lined up to create a special installation for the lobby of White Columns, and the ACT Up Oral History Project, featuring more than a hundred video interviews with artists and activists, will also be on view.

Melvin Edwards, "Sculptures 1964–2010," at Alexander Gray Associates, 508 West 26th Street, #215, through October 16, opening Wednesday, September 8, 6–8 p.m., alexandergray.com

THURSDAY

Santiago Sierra, "Los Penetrados," at Team Gallery, 83 Grand Street, through October 23, opening Thursday, September 9, 6–8 p.m., teamgal.com

Spanish artist Santiago Sierra is a subversive, dissident voice in the typically cheery, utopian world of relationship aesthetics. While an artist like Rirkrit Tiravanija may cook a fine Thai meal as a work of art, Sierra "knows that there’s no such thing as a free meal: everything and everyone has a price," as art history professor Claire Bishop has so elegantly put it. The relations he constructs are often one-sided and focused on domination, as in his self-explanatory 1999 piece "250 cm Line Tattooed on Six Paid People" (salary: $30), and this 45-minute film of 10 people having anal sex.

"Material Issues and Other Matters," at Canada, 55 Chrystie Street, through October 10, opening Thursday, September 9, 6:30–8:30 p.m., canadanewyork.com

Andra Ursuta, "The Management of Barbarism," at Ramiken Crucible, 221 East Broadway, through October 31, opening Thursday, September 9, 6–9 p.m., ramikencrucible.com

Richard Wentworth, at Peter Freeman, 560 Broadway, Suite 602/603, through October 30, opening Thursday, September 9, 6–8 p.m., peterfreemaninc.com

Roman Opalka, "Passages," and Zilvinas Kempinas, "BALLROOM," at Yvon Lambert, 550 West 21st Street, through October 16, opening Thursday, September 9, 6–9 p.m., yvon-lambert.com

Nathan Carter, "Pocket Shrapnel, Set-ups, Veronica Vex, and Brooklyn Street Treasures," at Casey Kaplan, 525 West 21st Street, through October 23, opening Thursday, September 9, 6–8 p.m., caseykaplangallery.com

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, "Do Not Abandon Me," at Carolina Nitsch Project Room, 534 West 22nd Street, through November 13, opening Thursday, September 9, 6–8 p.m., carolinanitsch.com

"The Space Between Reference and Regret," Keith Edmier and Allan McCollum, "Stop Motion," at Friedrich Petzel Gallery, 537 West 22nd Street, through October 16, opening Thursday, September 9, 6–8 p.m., petzel.com

Edward Burtynsky, "Pentimento," and Jeff Bark, "Lucifer Falls," at Hasted Hunt Kraeutler, 537 West 24th Street, through October 16, opening Thursday, September 9, 6–8 p.m., hastedhunt.com

Karl Wirsum, "Drawings: 1967–70," at Derek Eller Gallery, 615 West 27th Street, through October 9, opening Thursday, September 9, 6–8 p.m., derekeller.com

Gabriel Hartley, at Foxy Production, 623 West 27th Street, through October 16, opening Thursday, September 9, 6–8 p.m., foxyproduction.com