Labor Day signals that fall is here, and yes, it's time to get serious. In years past, most area museums opened their prestige shows in autumn, and though those high-profile exhibitions are now spread across the calendar year, there's still plenty to choose from this season, as you'll conclude from the offerings described below.

Although it has sometimes been slow to hit the "refresh" button on its thoughtful exhibitions, the GLBT History Museum kicks off this month with two new shows: For Love and Community: Queer Asian Pacific Islanders Take Action, 1960-1990s, an historical portrait of the region's queer and transgender community, many of whose members have roots in San Francisco, and Play Fair! The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Make Sex Safer, focusing on the long-running campaign that began as one of the first gay safe-sex initiatives. (Opening Sept. 18 and 28, respectively) www.glbthistory.org

Chinese Cultural Center Women Thirteen contemporary artists from China and the U.S. explore gender and sexual identity, issues that until recently have remained invisible in China. Designs by a consortium of underground NGOs inside China, whose work focuses on the hidden worlds of women, the LGBTQ community and sex workers, are a component of a diverse, multi-media exhibition. (Sept. 15-Nov. 30) www.c-c-c.org

de Young Museum When he wasn't running CBS or clashing with Edward R. Murrow, the esteemed network's founder and philanthropist William S. Paley collected art, and he had the financial means to do it. A sampling of Paley's collection, focusing on the late 19th and early 20th century artists of the French School and School Paris, is featured in A Taste for Modernism, a show that includes paintings by Degas, Derain, Matisse, Cezanne, Gauguin, Picasso and others. (Sept. 15-Dec. 30); This World is Not My Home: Photographs by Danny Lyon: 60 photographs and photo montages, from 1962 to the present, by street shooter Lyon, a self-described "romantic realist," who once vowed to "destroy Life magazine" by giving visibility to people on society's margins, subjects neglected by the mainstream glossies. (Sept. 29-Jan. 27); Marking the 20th anniversary of his death from AIDS,

Rudolf Nureyev: A Life in Dance celebrates the flamboyantly theatrical Russian ballet dancer, choreographer and tempestuous drama queen who defected to the West, where he became famous for his sublime partnership with Dame Margot Fonteyn. There will be 70 costumes, about which he was demanding and particular, and more than enough memorabilia on hand to satisfy the most ardent balletomane. (Oct. 6-Feb. 17) www.deyoungmuseum.famsf.org

Cantor Arts Center A War on Modern Art: The 75th Anniversary of Degenerate Art
The Nazis' gift for mass murder was exceeded only by their penchant for Orwellian double-speak. Exactly who was calling whom degenerate? That's only one question that arises in response to the infamous 1937 Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art ) exhibition in Munich, which art-school reject Adolph Hitler hoped would turn public sentiment against modernism – sounds like a nasty case of sour grapes to me. Hitler and his regime proclaimed these artists insane and a threat to the Reich's ideals, though his henchmen stole trainloads and stashed the booty in caves. Nine works by German artists Max Beckmann and Max Pechstein comprise this small exhibit. ( Oct. 3-Feb. 24) www.museum.stanford.edu

Cartoon Art Museum The Art of ParaNorman He has a square head and spiky hair, he's creepy and depressive, he communes with the dead, including his dearly departed grandmother, and some of his best friends are zombies. Now Norman has his own stop-motion animated 3-D movie, as well as this show of original concept art, puppets and costumes from the film. Not too shabby for an outcast. (Opens Oct. 6) www.cartoonart.org

YBCA Nayland Blake: FREE!LOVE!TOOL!BOX! The Brooklyn-based agitator, performance artist and writer deploys his own life experience, elements of his "Equipment for a shameful epic," a 1993 toolkit piece with Nixon masks, horror paraphernalia and rubber weapons, and "The Bride Groom Stripped Bare," a videotape by the late, radical fashion designer Alexander McQueen, as catalysts for the uncanny sculptures he has forged for his solo exhibition here. (Oct. 12-Jan. 27) www.ybca.org

Legion of Honor It might be as good a time as any to savor the opulent, exquisitely crafted objets that once belonged to the let-them-eat-cake crowd before they lost their heads. Produced with no expense spared, many of the dazzling pieces on view in Royal Treasures from the Louvre: Louis the XIV to Marie-Antoinette have never been ogled outside of France. (Nov. 17-March 17) www.legionofhonor.famsf.org

MoAD North African Jewelry and Photography from the Xavier Guerrand-Hermes Collection features 94 pieces of spectacular jewelry and 28 photographs from Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia, drawn from the extensive collection of the Parisian fashion impresario for whom scarves and pricey handbags are not enough. (Oct. 5-Jan. 23) www.moadsf.org

November comes in like a lion at SFMOMA , when the museum opens concurrent shows by a pair of American heavyweights: Jasper Johns: Seeing with the Mind's Eye surveys the entire 60-year career of the transformative, ever curious, always inventive Johns, who paved the way for Pop Art and Minimalism in the 1950s, and is still going strong at the age of 82, while Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective encompasses four decades and 130 paintings, drawings, photos, jewelry, collages and sculptures by the Bay Area artist best known for her 2,000-lb. masterpiece, "The Rose." (Nov. 3-Feb.3) www.sfmoma.org

Contemporary Jewish Museum The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League, 1936-1951 This comprehensive exhibition of work produced by a group of idealistic young photographers, mostly Jewish first-generation Americans, includes details about its history, importance and political milieu. (Coming out of the worker's movement, it emerged during with the Depression, continued through WWII, and ended with the Red Scare.) On display are 150 vintage images by an all-star cast of mid-20th century photography: Consuelo Kanaga, Weegee, Lisette Model and Berenice Abbott, among others. (Oct. 11-Jan. 21); The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats honors the pioneering, award-winning Brooklyn author and illustrator of Whistle for Willie, Peter's Chair, and The Snowy Day. The latter volume, published at the apex of the civil rights movement, was the first full-color picture book with an African-American protagonist and gritty urban landscapes. The exhibition presents over 80 original works, from preliminary sketches and dummy books, to final paintings and collages, some of which were inspired by Asian art, haiku and the anti-Semitism and poverty Keats endured in his youth. (Nov. 15-Feb 24) www.thecjm.org