Illustration by Tonio Inverness for ArtsATL based on image by Daderot, mask exhibited in the Cleveland Museum of Art (licensed via CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication).

The 2025 Spring Arts Preview: Our picks in Art+Design

ArtsATL staff

February 18, 2025

Spring Arts Home

We love what we see coming in Atlanta’s museums, commercial galleries and nonprofit art spaces. Here are a few of the best offerings.

*Adrian Baker’s* Net-Work, installed in MODA’s Threads of Change.

The notion that humanity may be hanging on to its survival by a thread finds a literal expression in Museum of Design Atlanta’s current exhibition, Threads of Change, running through May 25. This show grapples with the connection between humans and the natural world, highlighting its beauty and fragility by translating scientific data into a variety of textile art forms. The work includes embroidered climate data infographics by Bonnie Peterson, a tapestry by Sandra M. Sawatzky outlining the human relationship with oil and the stunning crocheted coral reefs by Margaret and Christine Wertheim.

*William Henry Johnson,* Woman in Blue (Photo by Mike Jensen; courtesy of Clark University Museum of Art)

A museum’s permanent collection is meant to exemplify that institution’s values and safeguard the culture’s treasures. That’s why Rediscovery at Clark Atlanta University Art Museum marks an important moment when the museum’s permanent collection will go on display, including works that have not been viewed in several years and new acquisitions that have never been displayed. The collection began when Hale Woodruff established the Atlanta University Art Annuals in 1942 and has since grown to include the likes of Radcliffe Bailey, Samella Lewis and John Rhoden. The show runs through May 2.

A major challenge for museums is to make their collections feel relevant to the modern world. The Michael C. Carlos Museum will answer this challenge with Call and Response, running from February 22 through June 22. In this show, five objects drawn from the museum’s permanent collection — representing five distinctive cultures — serve as the “call” to which five contemporary co-creators will respond with contemporary re-interpretations and engagement. Call and Response brings historical objects right up to the present moment.

*Kim Chong Hak,* Snowy Mountain, 2008. (Courtesy of the artist and the High Museum. © Kim Chong Hak)

Born in 1937, Kim Chong Hak is a painter of global stature underappreciated in the United States. The High Museum will be organizing the first U.S. museum exhibition of “the painter of Mount Seorak,” known for making dramatic changes across his painting practice throughout the decades. Starting out as an abstract painter of the 1960s, Kim ultimately abandoned the Western style, moving toward traditional Korean painting but marrying it to an international style of neo-expressionism. Kim Chong Hak, Painter of Seoraksan runs from April 11 through November 2.

More Art+Design Highlights . . .

The Kevin Cole-curated group show In Search of Myself features Sheila Bussey, Etienne Jackson and more at ArtsXchange’s Jack Sinclair Gallery through March 22.

Amanda Williams showcases abstract mixed media and watercolor works in We Say What Black This Is at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art through May 24.

Eileen Braun and Elyse Defoor explore line, shape and texture in reference to the female body in Stripped Down at Spruill Gallery February 27 through April 11.

Tim Hunter depicts silhouettes of 180 bird species currently in decline using asphalt and cement in Birds of America in Decline at Gallery 100 from February 27 through April 10.

Treyvian Dowell, Charity Hamidullah and Chaice Garner explore various modes of painting on the edges of figurative work at Echo Contemporary Art March 1 through March 28.

Ryoji Ikeda turns massive troves of data into spectacular digital art in data-verse at the High Museum March 7 through August 10.

The recent Artadia and SEEN Award winner Aineki Traverso opens Narcissus’ Pagoda on March 14 at Wolfgang Gallery with large-scale paintings incorporating installation work as well.

A Network of Autonomy is a group exhibition jointly produced by The Bakery Atlanta and Emory’s Center for Ethics, addressing facets of reproductive justice from March 20 through March 31.

2025 Edge Award winner Darya Fard will open her solo exhibition at Swan Coach House Gallery with finalists Antonio Darden, Wihro Kim, Jackson Markovic and Marinelly Piñango March 27 through May 1.

Chilean-born Ignacio Michaud’s paintings capture a raw psychological primitivism based on intuition and naive mark-making at Sandler Hudson March 29 through May 3.

North Carolina wood turner Anatoly Tsiris teams up with Atlanta atmospheric landscape painter Peter Polites in Wood and Water at Alan Avery Art Company April 4 through May 30.

The first U.S. exhibition showcasing the work of French haute couture fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin kicks off in Haute Couture Heritage at SCAD Fash Museum of Fashion + Film April 4 through August 31.

Frank Schroeder’s paintings of expressionistic color go on view at September Gray April 11 through May 9.

Cig Harvey’s surreal images of nature and Julie Blackmon’s idiosyncratic take on the American family go on display at Jackson Fine Art starting April 17.

Teresa Bramlette Reeves shows off a refined touch and light hand across media at whitespace April 26 through May 31. Kit Rutter shows simultaneously in whitespec.

African Americans for the Arts, whose mission is to educate and promote diversity in the arts community, presents Unifying U.S. Through Art at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center May 1 through May 29.

Atlanta Center for Photography’s 2025 Emerging Artist Fellow Brayan Enriquez shows photographs of his extended family taken in Mexico — May 29 through August 23.