A comprehensive look inside the head of Spencer Finch.

2. Martin Kersels: Heavyweight Champion

Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College

Big man vs. gravity.

3. Joachim Schmid: Photoworks 1982-2007

Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College

Schmid’s motto: “No new photographs until the old ones have been used up.”

4. Keith Edmier: 1991-2007

Hessel Museum of Art & CCS Galleries, Bard College

Evel Knievel RIP.

5. Martin Creed: Feelings

Hessel Museum of Art & CCS Galleries, Bard College

First North American survey of this British artist. Why was that guy running?

6. Natural Selection

Albany International Airport Gallery

Darwin good, intelligent design bad!

7. Mr. President

University Art Museum, University at Albany

Will anything change in 2008?

8. Paul Santoleri

Arts Center of the Capital Region

His site-specific wall drawing-installation was complex, and energized the space.

9. Contemporary Sculpture at Chesterwood

Chesterwood Estate and Museum

This well-curated show was enhanced by the beauty of the natural surroundings.

10. Parallel Passages: Lynn Davis at the Sites of Frederic Edwin Church

Albany Institute of History and Art

Davis followed in Church’s footsteps a century later and captured similar sites in monumental photographs.

This must-see exhibit with more than 100 works showed us a complex Monet who drew, drew, and drew some more, beginning as an accomplished caricaturist. Just the fact that you could search his scanned notebooks on computer made this show amazing; then there were his early drawings, and dozens of heavenly paintings and pastels, all the more intriguing now that we have a fuller picture of his process.

2. Rembrandt: The Consummate Etcher

The Hyde Collection

Note to self: Visit the Hyde more often, especially for spiritual uplift in the dregs of winter. A superb Rembrandt show that made me feel lucky to live in this area, this exhibit yielded insight into printmaking and provided balm for the soul.

3. Making It New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy

Williams College Museum of Art

Sara and Gerald Murphy painted, lived, dressed and breathed modernism; this exhibit, with lots of memorabilia and most of Gerald’s works on display, makes one wish he had made more than a handful of paintings during his long and eventful life.

4. Iroquois Games and Dances: Paintings by Tom Two Arrows

Albany Institute of History and Art

Tom Two Arrows (Thomas Dorsey, who died in 1993), an Albany native, portrayed Native American customs with a graphic boldness that shows viewers a living, breathing culture of grace and beauty. This vibrant, sophisticated diversity is just what I hope to see more of in 2008.

5. The Believers

Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art

Being wacko has its upsides, namely: Theo Jansen’s flying machines; CarianaCarianne’s compelling video proclamations; and the photos of Breyer P-Orridge, a transgendered couple undergoing surgery to look more alike (sadly, Lady Jaye Breyer died this year from a previously undiagnosed heart condition).