With "In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960-1976," the Museum of Modern Art trains its modernist lens on conceptual art as a historic phenomenon.

Let's not fault Artforum for being unreasonable. It would tarnish any art magazine's credibility to allow artists to purchase editorial space within its pages. But that was not the specific complaint offered by the magazine's editors when, late in 1974, Lynda Benglis purchased a front-of-the-book centerfold in which the artist, naked but for pair of cat-eye shades, brandishes a double-pronged dildo in a sexually explicit pose. In industry terms, Benglis's photo spread might be described as an advertorial -- part artwork in itself, part advertisement for the show that was reviewed in the same issue.

There is something about electronic music that lends itself to cinematic interpretation. Since the advent of the music video, ambient sound and visual imagery have proven especially copacetic. Modes of production, the use of collage and montage and the conceit of total experience span across genres, as the long list of collaborations between artists in their respective fields goes both ways: One is reminded of Wendy Carlos' futuristically classical scoring for Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, Michael Gondry's train window video direction for the Chemical Brothers' Star Guitar, Giorgio Moroder's controversial musical re-edit of Fritz Lang's silent Metropolis -- even Björk's extended composition for Matthew Barney's feature length Drawing Restraint 9. It comes as no surprise, then, that David Lynch should collaborate with the subversive DJ Danger Mouse (aka Brian Burton) and reclusive Sparklehorse (Mark Linkous).

Encompassing 73 Texas artists from small towns as well as metropolitan centers, the bulk of the third Texas Biennial consisted of two large thematic group shows and four regional solo exhibitions, all held at six nonprofit and artist-run venues throughout the city. Guest-curator Michael Duncan, a Los Angeles-based art critic and curator (and A.i.A. corresponding editor), selected participants from an open call, which resulted in 650 submissions, amplified by wide-ranging studio visits. While several of the biennial artists show at commercial galleries, the majority are unknown to the wider art world.

Jason Middlebrook’s ambitious project “Live with Less” used as its basic material discarded cardboard boxes collected on campus over a two-month period.