The 2024 Fall Arts Preview: Our picks in art and design

An unprecedented fall brings international attention to Atlanta’s art world . . . and the Atlanta art world’s attention to the world beyond.

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Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys first made a splash when it debuted at the Brooklyn Museum in February, drawing star power attention with the likes of Queen Latifah and Tracee Ellis Ross turning up at the glitzy opening fête. The collection’s next stop is the High Museum of Art, where it will open on September 13 and run through January 19. The 98 major artworks are drawn from the collection of Kasseem Dean (better known as Swizz Beatz) and Alicia Keys and features a murderer’s row of marquee Black American and international artists: Kehinde Wiley, Deborah Roberts, former Driskell Award-winner Ebony G. Patterson and Spelman alumna Amy Sherald, to name a few. For the curious, the collection also includes a few of the Deans’ collected non-art objects, such as BMX bikes and music equipment.

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As evidence of its ever-expanding global art presence, Atlanta has attracted significant attention with the Atlanta Art Fair, its first-ever international art fair in the mold of Frieze or The Armory. Atlanta favorites, such as Marcia Wood Gallery and Spalding Nix Fine Art, will share the Pullman Yards convention floor on October 3 through October 6 with edgy upstarts such as Day & Night Projects and Hawkins Headquarters. A full roster of organizations other than commercial galleries will also have a presence, including Art Papers, Georgia Tech and Dashboard Co-Op. Galleries from cities such as Brooklyn, Nashville, Albuquerque and Chicago will be represented, as will entrants from Finland, South Korea, Ireland and elsewhere. Atlanta Art Fair is produced by the same company that produces Seattle Art Fair and San Francisco Art Fair. Don’t forget to consult our guide to the Fair with its ongoing updates here.

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Speaking of big splashes, it was impossible to be in the art world’s social media feeds at the opening of the 2024 Venice Biennale in April without running into raves over the work of Jeffrey Gibson. The multimedia installation artist was the first Native American to represent the United States in the Biennale. The Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art on the campus of Kennesaw State University will present a sprawling solo exhibition of Gibson’s work in They Teach Love, opening August 27 and closing December 7. Gibson taps into his Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee heritages to explore a “hard-earned optimism,” as stated by the museum’s website, using traditional handcrafts to create a radical new vision of the future. The show’s 35 works are drawn from the collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.

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More Art+Design Highlights…

• Ming Smith: Feeling the Future is a generous exhibition of experimental and traditional photography by a pioneering Black woman photographer. It is open now at the Spelman Museum of Fine Art through December 7.
• Day & Night Projects, the scrappy artist-run gallery in southwest Atlanta, will present a solo exhibition of typically witty sculpture and installation work by Mark Wentzel in Moment from September 5 through October 4.
• Dominating Castleberry Hill, art maven Miya Bailey will take over three venues in My My, a sprawling solo gambit at Hidden Gallery 333, Old Rabbit Gallery and Nina Baldwin Gallery. Dozens of new works will be on display from September 6 to October 2.
• Cameroonian fashion designer Imane Ayissi will be highlighted at SCAD FASH in Imane Ayissi: From Africa to the World from September 18 through February 23, 2025. With over 40 looks, this show will be the designer’s first solo.
• The Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University will present Picture Worlds, a combined exhibition of painted pottery from the Mediterranean Greek, Central American Maya and Peruvian Moche peoples from September 14 to December 15. Works by contemporary Maya painters round out the exhibition.
• Whitespace in Inman Park will present Sarah Emerson: In the Land of Plenty from September 27 to November 16. Fresh off a new mural commissioned by the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, the artist typically creates wild landscapes that evoke Disney and Looney Tunes at the same time.
• Perhaps as a gentle send-up of global biennial culture, The Temporary Art Center will present … an Atlanta Biennial… from October 3 to November 3. Timed to overlap with Atlanta Art Week, the sprawling exhibition is packed with names such as Hasani Sahlehe, Jill Frank, Aineki Traverso and Paul Stephen Benjamin, among many others.
• Celebrating its new renovations, which are packed with arts programming, The Goat Farm will present SITE on October 5. The arts hub will present an evening of “art installations, live performances, exhibitions and open studios,” starting at 5 p.m.
• Georgia O’Keeffe is most known for her suggestive floral paintings. The High Museum presents My New Yorks, a survey focusing on the lesser-known depictions of New York City’s built environment from October 25 through February 16, 2025.
• Callanwolde Fine Arts Center will showcase the archives of the tireless chronicler of the urban environment, Shannon McCollum, in Shannon McCollum: Forever I Love Atlanta. The opening reception takes place on November 7.
• Babe Walls celebrates women and nonbinary artists who work in the worlds of murals and street art. In the South for the first time, this year’s festival takes place in Chamblee November 7 through November 10 and includes favorites Charity Hamidullah, Arrrtaddict, Nicole Kang Ahn and many others.

More 2024 Fall Picks