Arts Agenda: Museum and gallery highlights

Each week, ArtsATL delivers a critic’s short list of the shows, exhibitions, concerts and events we recommend for the coming weeks within one discipline or venue type in the kaleidoscope of Atlanta arts and culture. Every week, we’ll present a different art form. 

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Through December 4

Collective Geometries examines geometry and pattern as foundational languages that artists use to organize, disrupt and reimagine visual experience. The show will be on view at Kennesaw State University’s Zuckerman Museum of Art through December 4.

Through December 13

An expanded Legendary Georgia Musicians in Watercolor by Jackie Dorsey will be on view at the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art through December 13. The original exhibition of 20 paintings took place at the Lyndon House Arts Center in Athens. This exhibition was created to pay homage to the musicians who have called Georgia their home. The multiyear endeavor calls attention to the extraordinary music coming out of Georgia.

Through January 3

Renowned worldwide for his iconic I SPY! and Can You See What I See? children’s book series, Walter Wick is one of the nation’s most famous photographic illustrators. Throughout his decades-long career, his award-winning books have captivated readers across cultures and generations, combining art, craft and technology to inspire discovery and wonder. This fall, the High will present I SPY! Walter Wick’s Hidden Wonders, the largest survey of Wick’s work to date, through January 3.

New Day Rising, Shepard Fairey’s first solo exhibition in Atlanta, continues through January 3 at ABV Gallery. Featuring 180 works, the exhibition brings together paintings, prints, mixed-media pieces and other explorations of Fairey’s distinctive visual language.

Through January 9

MOCA GA’s inaugural exhibition in its new space — Selections from the MOCA GA Permanent Collection 1949-2025 — comprises 75 works from the museum’s collection of some 1,600 pieces. See it through January 9. Read our review of the show.

Through January 15

Curated by paper artist Michael Velliquette, The Craft of Paper: Contemporary Takes on Tradition explores modern interpretations of paper crafts, including cutting, folding, rolling, weaving and layering. See it at Georgia Tech’s Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking through January 15, 2027.

Through January 17

Since the 1970s, Martin Puryear has captivated the public with beautiful and thought-provoking works inspired by global culture, social history and the natural world. The High Museum of Art will be the exclusive Southeast venue for Martin Puryear: Nexus, the most comprehensive presentation of his career in more than two decades. The exhibition features more than 70 works, from sculptures in wood, glass, marble and cast bronze to rarely shown drawings and prints. It’s on view through January 17.

Through January 24

The Greek noun anamnesis can be translated straightforwardly as “reminiscence,” but it also expresses the possibility of remembering things from a previous existence, and it was used by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato to describe the innate knowledge recalled by the immortal soul through each rebirth. Using this word as its guiding principle, Anamnesis: Works by Sergio Suárez stages a series of conversations, or remembrances, between the work of Sergio Suárez (b. 1995, Mexico City) and the Carlos Museum’s collections of Indigenous American art, Greek and Roman art and works on paper. It’s at the Michael C. Carlos Museum and will be on view through January 24. 

Through February 7

Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan examines the overlapping careers of White, Siskind and Callahan, profoundly influential photographers, teachers and thinkers who redefined photography in the mid-20th century. It continues through February 7.

Through February 28

Realism Revisited includes paintings and works on paper by artists representing a variety of realist movements, including European realism, American realism, hyperrealism and social realism. Selected from the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, it draws on major exhibitions of the museum’s past, including The Spirit and the Flesh: Contemporary American Realists of 1995 and Slow Painting: The Deliberate Renaissance of 2006, both organized by OUMA Founding Director Lloyd Nick. It includes recent gifts of the social realist prints of artist Minna Wright Citron, gifted by Citron’s family in 2025, and three paintings on loan from metro Atlanta Contemporary Realist Melvin Toledo.

Through July 12

MODA’s Salt: A Design Story explores how salt is a designer (influencing natural landscapes, politics and war), designed (as in craft salts, salt shakers and package design) and has spurred the design of industry, machinery and entire cities. The show will be on view through July 12.

November 12-January 7, 2027

Swan Coach House Gallery’s annual small works exhibition, Little Things, opens with a reception from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on November 12. It features hundreds of one-of-a-kind, small works from more than 65 artists from Georgia and the Southeast and will be on view through January 7.

November 13-December 19

Hyatt Cottage at Legacy Park hosts Portals, A group exhibition curated by Larry Holland and presented by 404 Found ATL in collaboration with the Decatur Arts Alliance. It will feature local artists exploring gateways between worlds, memories, perceptions and possibilities. It’s accompanied by Ephemera, a solo exhibition by Holland. The exhibitions open with a reception from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on November 13 and will be on view through December 19.

November 14-December 6

Cat Eye Creative will host Julio Ceballos’ debut solo exhibition, Beholder, opening on November 14 and continuing through December 6 

November 14-January 23

La Próxima Pisca presents new work made over the past two years as part of José Ibarra Rizo’s ongoing photographic project exploring migration, identity and belonging in the American South. It opens on November 14 at the Hudgens Center for Art & Learning and will be on view through January 23.