High Museum Fall Exhibits (wednesdays)
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CRITIC’S PICK:
Fri., Oct. 10 - Sun., Feb. 8
Fashion Statements: Viktor & Rolf, High Museum — This duo of Dutch fashion designers brags that the likes of Cardi B, Lady Gaga, Madonna and Tilda Swinton wear their “sublime” clothing. The first major retrospective in the US of their work is organized by curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot and the Kunsthalle Munich in Germany. The show “demonstrates how wearable art is among the most provocative and inventive forms of contemporary design,” says the High’s Director Rand Suffolk. The works on display are enhanced by projected images specifically designed for the exhibition by Rodeo FX, the visual effects studio known for its work on ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘Game of Thrones.’ “The singular and enchanted vision of Viktor and Rolf’s work offers a unique dialogue between art and fashion,” Loriot says. — Kevin C. Madigan
Fri., Apr. 11 - Sun., Nov. 2
CRITIC’S PICK: Kim Chong Hak - Painter of Seoraksan, High Museum - Making its debut at the High before touring nationwide, Kim Chong Hak’s exhibition features more than seventy works that span the length of his career, presenting a type of artistic endeavor rarely seen outside his native South Korea; in his homeland Kim is popularly known as ‘the painter of Mount Seorak’ - the highest peak in the Taebaek mountain range. At Mount Seorak, Kim “forged a physical, spiritual and emotional relationship to the Korean landscape inflected by his generation’s collective memories of colonization, war, geopolitical conflict and economic crisis,” says Michael Rooks, a senior curator at the High. According to the museum, Kim’s work “reasserts the expressive potency of mountain imagery in traditional East Asian art while also demonstrating the influence of international movements of the 1970s and 1980s such as neo-expressionism and other strains of figurative painting.” - Kevin C. Madigan
Fri., Nov. 14 – Sun., Apr. 19
Critic's Pick
The Lost World: The Art of Minnie Evans, High Museum — “They are just as strange to me as they are to anybody else,” the late folk artist Minnie Evans responded when asked about the meaning of her paintings. The title of her show at the High is derived from vivid dreams she had as a child which eventually inspired her to draw and paint. Evans was considered a surrealistic visionary who created “psychedelic” artworks based on her unusual visions. In 1975, a major exhibition of her work opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, followed by another show at St. John’s Museum, both in New York. The Whitney is set to host ‘The Lost World’ after its run at the High. - Kevin C. Madigan
CRITIC’S PICK: Ezrom Legae: Beasts, High Museum: The late South African
draughtsmen, sculptor, and teacher Ezrom Legae gained prominence during the apartheid era and extended his activism against the regime after its conclusion. “I will continue to talk about things as I see them,” Legae once told an interviewer. “People can change, but masters cannot. Change doesn’t happen overnight”. Legae created figures, heads and animals and worked with oil, conté crayons, charcoal, bronze, clay and mixed media; ‘Beasts’ is his first major museum exhibition in the United States. His depictions of animals are described as covert representations of apartheid’s players and impact. - Kevin C. Madigan
Fri., Jun. 13 - Sun., Jan. 4
CRITIC’S PICK: Photography’s New Vision: Experiments in Seeing, High Museum:~~ The New Vision movement that began a century ago is being presented at the High via 100 photographers - Ilse Bing, Alexander Rodchenko, Imogen Cunningham and László Moholy-Nagy among them. In addition, contemporary artists such as Jerry Uelsmann, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Abelardo Morell will demonstrate the impact of the movement on subsequent generations. According to the museum, New Vision photographers were known to use experimental techniques, including photograms, photomontages and compositions featuring odd angles and uncommon viewpoints, leading to surrealism and constructivism.
“This exhibition provides an opportunity to illuminate photographers’ creativity and innovative practices, all inspired by the progression of the medium in the 1920s and '30s,” says the museum’s Art Director Rand Suffolk. “Many of the works are rarely on view, so it will be an exciting experience for visitors to see them and learn about photographers’ abilities as they reflect reality while experimenting with technique and perspective.” Maria L. Kelly, the High’s assistant curator of photography, added, “The movements and happenings of a century ago are akin to those of today and those shown in the exhibition. There remains a desire for alternative ways to see and approach the world through art, and particularly through photography.” — Kevin C. Madigan
From the venue:
Photography's New Vision: Experiments in Seeing
Named by the influential German artist and teacher László Moholy-Nagy, the “New Vision” comprised an expansive variety of photographic exploration that took place in Europe, America, and beyond in the 1920s and 1930s. The movement was characterized by its departure from traditional photographic methods. New Vision photographers foregrounded experimental techniques, including photograms, photomontages, and light studies, and made photographs that favored extreme angles and unusual viewpoints.
This exhibition, uniting more than one hundred works from the High’s robust photography collection, will trace the impact of the New Vision movement from its origins in the 1920s to today. Photographs from that era by Ilse Bing, Alexander Rodchenko, Imogen Cunningham, and Moholy-Nagy will be complemented by a multitude of works by modern and contemporary artists such as Barbara Kasten, Jerry Uelsmann, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Abelardo Morell to demonstrate the long-standing impact of the movement on subsequent generations.
Viktor&Rolf. Fashion Statements
For more than three decades, Dutch fashion artists Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren have explored the boundaries between haute couture and art with breathtaking virtuosity. The self-confessed fashion world outsiders have garnered critical acclaim for their unconventional designs that reveal technical prowess and a deep knowledge of fashion and history, and their creations have been embraced by artists including Cardi B, Lady Gaga, Madonna, and Tilda Swinton. This fall, the High will be the exclusive US venue to present this exhibition, the first major retrospective of their work, organized by curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot and the Kunsthalle Munich in Germany, where it debuted in February 2024. The exhibition will feature more than one hundred of Viktor&Rolf’s most daring and avant-garde works, designed for the runway and beyond, that reflect the duo’s passions, obsessions, and singular vision. Included are garments from more than thirty of their collections as well as selections of their “works-in-progress dolls,” inspired by antique porcelain dolls and dressed in miniature versions of the designers’ handmade creations. The works are accompanied by elaborate animated projections designed for the exhibition by the internationally acclaimed visual effects studio Rodeo FX.
Kim Chong Hak, Painter of Seoraksan
The High is organizing the first American museum exhibition featuring the work of Kim Chong Hak (born 1937, Sinuiju, Korea), a master painter from South Korea popularly known as “the painter of Mount Seorak” — the highest peak in the country’s Taebaek mountain range. With more than seventy works, including new acquisitions from the High’s collection, the exhibition will span the arc of Kim’s mature career and present an aspect of Korean art in the late twentieth century little known outside of South Korea.
Having first worked as an abstract painter in the 1960s, Kim ultimately rejected the adoption of Western-style abstraction, which he viewed as a response to national melancholy brought on by previous decades of hardship and deprivation. In the late 1970s, he settled in Gangwon Province, eastern South Korea, home of Mount Seorak. There he sought out an alternative artistic discourse, moving away from the monochromatic painting popular in Korea at that time toward his unabashedly expressive style. He has since dedicated his life and work to interpreting the environs of Mount Seorak, developing an artistic and emotional attunement to the natural world during decades of self-imposed isolation in the mountains.
Ezrom Legae: Beasts
This is the first major museum exhibition in the United States for celebrated South African artist Ezrom Legae (1938–1999). After apartheid was established, many artists in South Africa contended with its corresponding oppression and bodily violence by presenting the human figure in animal form or abstracting it. This exhibition focuses on Legae’s own bestial compositions, featuring more than thirty drawings of contorted and anguished creatures, each imaginative studies and explorations of form and metaphors articulating the artist’s political consciousness. The exhibition features drawings from 1967 to 1996, foregrounding the 1970s and 1990s, each groundbreaking periods in South African political history. Amid mounting unrest and anti-apartheid protests in the 1970s, such as the Soweto uprisings, activists and civilians endured increased violence, exile, and imprisonment, often without trial and including solitary confinement. This period is considered Legae’s most prolific, in which he produced pencil, ink, and charcoal depictions of animals as covert representations of apartheid’s players and impact. The artist produced substantially less until the 1990s, when he reemerged during South Africa’s political transition with drawings addressing the end of apartheid and lingering concerns regarding racism and poverty. Legae’s beasts exemplify the ways artists use coded visual languages to subvert and endure tyranny.
High Museum Fall Exhibits (wednesdays) | 10/15/2025 10:00 AM