ATLANTA, Sept. 23, 2020 — The High Museum of Art presents a rotating schedule of exhibitions throughout the year. Below is a list of current and upcoming exhibitions as of Sept. 23, 2020. Note: The exhibition schedule is subject to change. Please contact the High’s press office or visit www.high.org for more information or to confirm details.
Upcoming Exhibitions
“Julie Mehretu”
Oct. 24, 2020-Jan. 31, 2021
The High will present the first major traveling exhibition of work by Julie Mehretu, co-organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Whitney Museum of American Art. This is the first comprehensive survey of the artist’s career, covering more than two decades of her work, from 1996 to the present, and uniting nearly 40 drawings and prints and 35 paintings predominantly monumental in size and scale. Mehretu’s work bears witness to the shaping of human consciousness through the combination and reconfiguration of sources and images that address history and its intersection with the present. Her process involves compiling a vast and diverse archive of sources, including diagrams and maps, cave markings, Chinese calligraphy, architectural renderings, graffiti, photojournalism and texts. Among the works in the exhibition is the four-part cycle titled “Mogamma (A Painting in Four Parts)” (2012), which includes the High’s “Mogamma: Part 2.” This exhibition reunites all four panels of the monumental painting and marks the first time the work has been shown in its entirety in the United States. This exhibition is co-organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Read the full press release here.
Download press images here.
“Dawoud Bey: An American Project”
Nov. 7, 2020–March 14, 2021
Renowned photographer Dawoud Bey has dedicated more than four decades to portraying underrepresented communities and histories. From portraits in Harlem and classic street photography to nocturnal landscapes and large-scale studio portraits, his works combine an ethical imperative with an unparalleled mastery of his medium. The High will celebrate his important contributions to photography as the exclusive Southeast venue for this exhibition, the artist’s first full-career retrospective in 25 years. “Dawoud Bey: An American Project” will feature approximately 80 works that span the breadth of Bey’s career, from his earliest street portraits made in Harlem in the 1970s to his most recent series reimagining sites of the Underground Railroad (2017). The presentation will include work from his eight major series, organized to reflect the development of his vision throughout his career and highlight his enduring engagement with portraiture, place and history. This exhibition is co-organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
“Bestowing Beauty: Masterpieces from Persian Lands”
Dec. 12, 2020–Spring 2021
Bringing together nearly 100 works highlighting the rich and artistic cultural heritage of Iranian civilization from the 6th to the 19th century, “Bestowing Beauty” draws from one of the most significant collections of Persian art privately owned and rarely publicly displayed. Works in the exhibition include carpets, textiles, manuscripts, paintings, ceramics, lacquer, metalwork, scientific instruments and jeweled objects. Highlights include exquisite miniature paintings from the Shahnama, the Iranian national epic; a range of historically significant ceramics; precious inlaid metal wares; finely woven silk fabrics; and a monumental silk carpet from the apex of Safavid dynasty carpet production. Woven throughout the tales of these extraordinary artworks are experiences, ideas and emotions shared by all peoples, grouped within the exhibition into the universal themes of faith and piety, love and longing, kingship and authority, banquets and battles, and earth and nature. This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
“Our Good Earth: Rural Life and American Art”
Winter 2020–Spring 2021
Since the nation’s founding, America’s national identity has been tied to the rural ideal. The power of the young country was drawn from its nature, with forests to clear, resources to mine and land to develop on an unprecedented scale. The yeoman farmer was among the most familiar of national characters. Even as the focus of American life drifted to the city from the farms, country ways remained a persistent subject of interest for artists. Through a selection of prints, drawings and photographs from the High’s collection, this exhibition will explore the many ways in which Americans imagined and engaged with life beyond the city limits over the course of a century. Works by artists ranging from Winslow Homer and Rhonda Nicholls in the 19th century to Thomas Hart Benton, Marion Greenwood, Ansel Adams and Andrew Wyeth in the 20th century will offer various views of country life. The artworks also will foreground the diversity of the High’s collection to present a dynamic and varied picture of the complex and compelling story of the American pastoral. This exhibition is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
“David Driskell: Icons of Nature and History”
Feb. 6–May 9, 2021
David Driskell (1931–2020) was one of the most revered American artists of his generation, long recognized for his vibrant and versatile painting and printmaking practices that combined keen observations of the American landscape with the imagery and aesthetic innovations of the African diaspora. Although Driskell’s work was regularly presented in galleries and museums during his lifetime, in both solo and group exhibitions, this is the first exhibition to unite his paintings and works on paper, bringing approximately 60 artworks together to present highlights of his career. It is also the first major survey of his work since his death in April 2020 at the age of 88. The exhibition surveys seven decades of the artist’s painterly practice from the 1950s to the 2000s, featuring works from museums and private collections and the artist’s estate. Select works establish the evolution of his use of collage as a medium, while others exemplify his signature incorporation of African images and forms. This exhibition is co-organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and the Portland Museum of Art, Maine, with support from The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
“Underexposed: Women Photographers from the High Museum”
Spring–Summer 2021
For nearly all of photography’s 180-year history, women have shaped the development of the art form and experimented with every aspect of the medium. Conceived in conjunction with the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which granted suffrage for some women, this exhibition showcases more than 100 photographs from the High’s collection, many of them never before on view, and charts the medium’s history from the dawn of the modern period to the present through the work of women photographers. Organized roughly chronologically, each section emphasizes a distinct arena in which women contributed and often led the way. Among the artists featured are pioneers of the medium such as Anna Atkins as well as more recent innovators and avid experimenters, including Betty Hahn, Barbara Kasten and Meghann Riepenhoff. The exhibition also celebrates the achievements of numerous professional photographers, including Berenice Abbott, Margaret Bourke-White and Marion Post Wolcott, who worked in photojournalism, advertising and documentary modes and promoted photography as a discipline. The exhibition also highlights photographers who photograph other women, children and families, among them Sally Mann, Nan Goldin and Diane Arbus, and those who interrogate ideals of femininity through self-portraiture. Also on view will be works by contemporary photographers who challenge social constructions of gender, sexuality and identity, including Zanele Muholi, Sheila Pree Bright, Cindy Sherman, Mickalene Thomas and Carrie Mae Weems. This exhibition is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
Currently on View
“Picture the Dream: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through Children’s Books”
Through Nov. 8, 2020
Organized by the High in collaboration with The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, this exhibition is the first of its kind to delve into the events, people and themes of the civil rights movement, both celebrated and forgotten, through one of the most compelling forms of visual expression, the children’s picture book. The nearly 80 artworks on view, ranging from paintings and prints to collages and drawings, evoke the power and continuing relevance of the era that shaped American history and continues to reverberate today. From Brown v. Board of Education and the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the March on Washington and Black Lives Matter, these events and more are explored in the exhibition with titles by beloved children’s book authors and artists as well as talented newcomers. “Picture the Dream” emphasizes children’s roles as activists and tells important stories about the movement’s icons, including Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, Congressman John Lewis, Ambassador Andrew Young and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Picture the Dream” marks the High’s fifth collaboration with The Eric Carle Museum, where the exhibition will be on view from Feb. 7 through May 30, 2021. The exhibition is guest curated by New York Times-bestselling and Coretta Scott King Book Award-winning children’s book author Andrea Davis Pinkney. This exhibition is co-organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, Massachusetts.
Read the full press release here.
Download press images here.
“Murmuration” by SO – IL
Through Nov. 29, 2020
The High presents this soaring, stunning installation by the internationally renowned architecture and design firm SO – IL and partners Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg, presented on The Woodruff Arts Center’s Carroll Slater Sifly Piazza. “Murmuration” continues a multiyear initiative to activate the High’s outdoor space with site-specific commissions that engage visitors of all ages in participatory art experiences. The installation speaks directly to the architecture of the Piazza and more broadly to the city of Atlanta and its relationship with the natural world as viewed through the lens of bird migrations. Featuring a foliage-filled mesh canopy suspended over the Piazza by a steel framework, the installation envelops guests, evoking tree canopies throughout the city and region. The canopy’s perches also serve to draw birds to the site. Beneath the canopy, guests can use the space as a shaded gathering point and participate in their own “nesting and perching” by using benches and “pods” suspended from the upper structure. “Murmuration” serves as a welcoming atmosphere for rest, socializing and recreation, as well as a place for families to connect and create memories at the Museum. This exhibition is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
Read the full press release here.
Download press images here.
“Pioneers, Influencers, and Rising Voices: Women in the Collection”
Ongoing
In observance of the centennial of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting some women the right to vote, this installation is drawn from the High’s collection and features artworks made exclusively by women. Artists represented include some of the most influential voices of the past 50 years, such as Kiki Smith, Lorna Simpson and Shirin Neshat; midcareer artists such as Won Ju Lim and Chantal Joffe; emerging artists such as Jamian Juliano Villani and Ella Kruglyanskaya; and Atlanta-based artists Annette Cone-Skelton and Rocío Rodríguez. Whether exploring the multidimensionality of installation art, refashioning Minimalist forms and strategies, or challenging male-dominated social hierarchies, the selected works are inspired by or related to feminist concerns, which were advanced by the women’s movement of the 1960s and ’70s. Concerns that still persist today include voter suppression strategies that seek to disenfranchise people from participating in the democratic process. This exhibition is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
About the High Museum of Art
Located in the heart of Atlanta, the High Museum of Art connects with audiences from across the Southeast and around the world through its distinguished collection, dynamic schedule of special exhibitions and engaging community-focused programs. Housed within facilities designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architects Richard Meier and Renzo Piano, the High features a collection of more than 17,000 works of art, including an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American fine and decorative arts; major holdings of photography and folk and self-taught work, especially that of artists from the American South; burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, including paintings, sculpture, new media and design; a growing collection of African art, with work dating from prehistory through the present; and significant holdings of European paintings and works on paper. The High is dedicated to reflecting the diversity of its communities and offering a variety of exhibitions and educational programs that engage visitors with the world of art, the lives of artists and the creative process. For more information about the High, visit www.high.org.
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Media contact:
Marci Tate Davis
Manager of Public Relations
404-733-4585
marci.davis@high.org