What’s Showing at the High Museum

What’s Showing at the High Museum

The four exhibits currently at the High Museum exemplify the adventure and curiosity of art, those qualities that enable us to see things in a new way, to combine the familiar with a vision that lights up life with a perspective we may not have known before. While the High is famous for exhibiting classics and pivotal moments in the history of art, these current exhibits are examples of a different kind of service to Atlanta, something we have come to rely on the High Museum to provide. The impact of this powerful artistic presence on the value of Midtown Atlanta real estate is immeasurable.

Just at This Moment

The unique career of an American artist, author, and educator is the subject of Painter and Poet: The Wonderful World of Ashley Bryan. Bryan set out from childhood to create books that filled the void of Africa-American characters that he saw in the libraries of the Bronx, as he grew up there during the Great Depression. After his WWII service in the Army, which included the D-Day Invasion of Europe, Bryan used the GI Bill to study philosophy at Columbia University and won a Fulbright Scholarship to continue his studies in Germany. Returning to teach in high schools and universities, Bryan’s first published book came out in 1967, and the stream of stories and illustrations continued through 50 published works. His exuberant illustrations are the focus of this important exhibit. Catch it soon, as it is scheduled to close January 21.

There’s more time remaining to see Al Taylor, What Are You Looking At? This multi-media celebration features the artist’s work in drawings, sculpture, and printmaking. Often using familiar, found objects, Taylor arranged them in ways that redefine space, and even time, unexpectedly. The sensation of seeing ordinary things in extraordinary ways is a hallmark of Taylor’s work, and it is on view in all three levels of the Renzo Piano–designed Anne Cox Chambers Wing at the High from now through March 18. Artist and curator Robert Storr will present a discussion on February 9 of how Al Taylor worked in a continuing cycle of drawings and assemblages to produce this extraordinary body of work.

Past Present and Future

The other special exhibits now on-view at the High Museum include “A Fire That No Water Could Put Out”: Civil Rights Photography, which assembles images that both reflected and drove the civil rights movement. In the 50th anniversary year of Martin Luther King’s death, the exhibit is organized into images from before 1968, during that pivotal year, and from the years since then.

Black Is the Day, Black Is the Night is an intensively revealing dive into the experience of solitary confinement. Artist Amy Elkins uses photography to explore the impact of this hidden condition on human abilities to know and feel. Though seemingly about a remote corner of society, the work does that job that art is so good at, to consider our own experience from a fresh point of view.

And What Endures

While exhibits come and go, the permanent collection and – above all – the impact of the High Museum of Art on Midtown Atlanta real estate has enriched our city for generations. It not only nourishes the life of residents, but also attracts visitors and thinkers from around the world, helping make Atlanta a place where many of the makers of the 21st Century are pleased to live.

And so, the value of condos for sale in Midtown Atlanta is enhanced by the steady, successful vision of the High Museum. It is just one facet of the big-city expertise and community cohesion that characterizes our city.