UPTOWN
LATIN AMERICAN ART TODAY—Trinity School, 139 West 91st. In recent years the dialogue of modern art has broken down most language barriers (see listings for the Danes and Japanese below}. Any notion that the Latin Americans have failed to get the message is dispelled by this roundup of 17 accomplished painters from eight countries, among them Rufino Tamayo of Mexico, Alejandro Obregón of Colombia, Matta of Chile. Alejandro Otero of Venezuela and Wifredo Lam of Cuba. Through March 6.
DAVID ALFARO SIQUEIROS—New Art Center, 1193 Lexington Ave. at 81st. His huge mural left unfinished in Chapultepec Castle, Mexican Communist Siqueiros, 67, has for 31 years sat in prison serving time for "social dissolution." But the warden lets him paint, and his dancing brush creates images somersaulting and swirling far from a prison courtyard. Through Feb. 29.
ANDRÉMASSON—Saidenberg, 1035 Madison Ave. at 79th. This retrospective dates from 1923 to 1962. The works trek from cubism to surrealism, imitating Picasso among others, finally arrive at some of the most spirited and sophisticated lines in current painting. Through March 8.
NATHANAEL NEUJEAN—Contemporaries, 992 Madison Ave. at 77th. Thirty-three small pieces in rough bronze for a Belgian sculptor's first U.S. showing. Much of his work commemorates the victims of the Nazi pogroms and stands as a monument to their courage. He endows his figures with dignity in despair, casts them in small lonely groups bound together both by human oppression and the hidden force of their own humanity. Through March 7.
SALUTE TO DENMARK—Lefebre, 47 East 77th. Steering a course through folklore, these modern Danes find a fresh amalgam of fantasy and feeling, aptly tagged "abstractions which are living fables." Carl-Henning Pedersen. Asger Torn. Eljer Bille, Henry Heerup, Mogens Balle. Egill Jacobsen and Preben Wölck, most for the first time in the U.S. Through March 21.
LOUIS EILSHEMIUS—Lewison, 50 East 76th. He was by his own accounting, an author, dramatist, composer, librettist, globetrotter, womanologist, inventor and mesmerist. Eilshemius was also a gifted artist who suffered more than most from a fickle public. This centenary showing begins with a beautifully precise drawing done at twelve, runs through his stay in Samoa and concludes with 1909. when he was 45 and still unknown (he died in 1941). Also a collection of his letters, photographs, poetry. Through March 28.
WORKS FROM THE KYOTO HAMLET OF FINE ARTS—French & Co.. 978 Madison Ave. at 76th. In 1961 four young Japanese artists founded a colony in Kyoto, a city that for centuries has been the stronghold of traditionalist art. Their work is being shown for the first time in the U.S., together with that of three colleagues.
Viewers will not find much that is traditionalist; these are modernists concerned basically with materials, which may be tin cans, rope or boards for painting, teak and hollowed iron for sculpture. But their new language still bears the accent of their native culture. Through March 14.