Upcoming Exhibits at the High Atlanta

Alec Soth: Black Line of Woods
August 8, 2009–January 3, 2010
Organized by the High Museum of Art, this exhibition is part of the “Picturing the South” commission series, representing one of the most distinctive and internationally significant aspects of the High’s growing photography collection. Alec Soth is the sixth photographer to have been commissioned in this series. Previous participants have included Dawoud Bey, Emmet Gowin, Sally Mann, Richard Misrach and Alex Webb. This exhibition explores spiritual and hermetic life in the rural South including studies that represent a variety of nature subjects, examples of manmade intervention (tree houses, forts, cabins and tents) and portraits (hermits, monks, campers and survivalists). Inspired by Flannery O’Connor, Soth creates photographs that are full of warmth and humor with narrative elements that are suggestive of Southern Gothic literature.

Leonardo da Vinci: Hand of the Genius
October 6, 2009–February 21, 2010
Exploring Leonardo da Vinci’s profound interest in and influence on sculpture, this exhibition will feature approximately 50 works, including more than 20 sketches and studies by Leonardo, some of which will be on view in the United States for the first time. The exhibition will also feature work by Donatello, Rubens, Verrocchio, and Rustici—including Rustici’s three monumental bronzes from the façade of the Baptistery in Florence that comprise “John the Baptist Preaching to a Levite and a Pharisee,” which was recently restored and has never left Florence. Also included are works from world-renowned collections, including that of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Musée du Louvre, the British Museum, and the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence. The exhibition will shed new light on Leonardo’s seminal role in the development of Renaissance sculpture and the work of artists who followed him through an examination of the sculpture that Leonardo studied, the sketches and studies he created for his own sculptural projects (the majority of which were never realized), and his interactions with other Renaissance sculptors. “Leonardo da Vinci: Hand of the Genius” is organized by the High Museum of Art in association with the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and in collaboration with the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, Italy. The exhibition is generously supported by Lead Corporate Partner Delta Air Lines and sponsor Campanile Plaza. Support has also been provided by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation and Leonardo Society members Loraine P. Williams, Lanier-Goodman Foundation, Morgens West Foundation, and Mr. and Mrs. Gary W. Rollins, with additional support from the Atlanta Foundation. Cargo support of the Sforza horse is provided by UPS. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

John Portman: Art & Architecture
October 17, 2009–January 17, 2010
The High Museum of Art will be the sole venue for “John Portman: Art & Architecture,” an exhibition featuring architectural projects, furniture, paintings, and sculpture by Atlanta-based architect and artist John Portman. The fifteen completed and current architectural projects that will be featured span five decades of national and international developments, including the Hyatt Regency Atlanta (1967) that is globally renowned as the first modern atrium hotel. The projects will be presented with large-scale photographs, design plans, elevations, text, articles, and in some cases, architectural models. The exhibition will also feature paintings and sculptures by Portman—most never before publicly exhibited. The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color catalogue with a major essay introduction by Paul Goldberger, noted historian and Architecture Critic for “The New Yorker” since 1997. “John Portman: Art & Architecture” is organized by the High Museum of Art, and is curated by Jeffrey Grove, the High’s Wieland Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

The Portrait Unbound: Photographs by Robert Weingarten
January 23–May 30, 2010
The High will premier an exhibition of new work by California-based photographer Robert Weingarten in January 2010. Consisting of twenty large-scale (60 x 90 in.) digitally created portraits of American icons, Weingarten’s project represents a bold departure from traditional camera portraiture. In “The Portrait Unbound,” Weingarten has created photographs that are highly sophisticated digital compositions of imagery that allude to specific interests, achievements or moments within the subject’s life. The result is a unique and compelling composite of images which describes the subject through biographical rather than physical information. “The Portrait Unbound: Photographs by Robert Weingarten” is organized by the High Museum and is curated by Julian Cox, the High’s Curator of Photography.

The Allure of the Automobile
March 21– June 20, 2010
The exhibition will present 18 of the world’s rarest and most brilliantly conceived cars ranging from the 1930s to the mid-1960s, including masterpieces by Bugatti, Duesenberg, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Ferrari. These cars combine state-of-the-art engineering, meticulous craftsmanship and groundbreaking design to create works of “rolling sculpture.” The 18 automobiles on view at the High will include one-of-a-kind, custom-built designs that incorporate remarkable advances in automotive styling and engineering. The sections of the exhibition will trace the evolution of the motorcar, examining the contrasts between European and American design, the influence of decorative arts and design and the significant changes in automotive styling and engineering both before and after World War II. The featured automobiles have also won awards at prestigious world events such as the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, broken records on racetracks and were previously owned by noted car enthusiasts such as Hollywood legends Clark Gable and Steve McQueen. “The Allure of the Automobile” is organized by the High Museum of Art. The exhibition is made possible by its Lead Corporate Sponsor, Porsche Cars North America, Inc. Additional support provided by NAPA. The exhibition’s guest curator is Ken Gross, writer, automotive historian and former executive director of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Ron Labaco, the High’s curator of decorative arts and design, is the managing curator. The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color catalogue.

European Design Since 1985: Shaping the New Century
June 5, 2010 – August 29, 2010
This exhibition is the first critical survey of contemporary Western European decorative arts and product design from the turn of the 21st century. Organized along the counterbalanced themes of modernism and postmodernism, the seminal works on display reveal the various stylistic movements that changed the face of design worldwide in the two decades after 1985. The furniture, lighting, glass, ceramics, and metalwork range from familiar mass-produced objects to limited-edition luxury goods by such celebrity designers as Philippe Starck and Marc Newson, and rising younger talents such as Marcel Wanders and Tord Boontje. European Design Since 1985: Shaping the New Century is organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Denver Art Museum in conjunction with Kingston University, London.

Radcliffe Bailey: Memory as Medicine
February 5, 2011 – May 8, 2011
This exhibition of more than 20 works—many large in scale and all created since 1994—looks at the influence of African art on the work of Atlanta-based artist Radcliffe Bailey. Featuring floor and wall sculptures, works-on-paper, and glass works, the exhibition highlights the artist’s experimentation with diverse forms. African sculptures supplement the exhibition. The exhibition takes its title, “Memory as Medicine,” from sets of “cabinet sculptures,” conceived by the artist as medicine cabinets for his socially cathartic art. Their contents include a broad range of culturally charged objects, imagery, and raw materials—from indigo to tobacco leaves to Georgia red earth—to lyrically connect the dots of the too-often disconnected histories of peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora. Bailey’s art—informed by a strong social and historical consciousness—combines a rich, narrative content with a high-level of abstraction and poetic resonance to explore questions of history and memory.