Best of Atlanta: Best Museum

High Museum of Art Poets, Artists & Madmen, Critics

Poets Critics High1 1 21.57d834239bd94
The HIGH MUSEUM OF ART kept us Midtown-bound opening after opening over the last year. The November exhibition, Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion, marked the Dutch designer’s first North American show and the High’s fashion debut. The vast display included 45 outfits from 15 collections and revealed van Herpen’s flair for marrying technology, unconventional materials such as umbrella ribs repurposed as wearable art, and couture. Two outdoor exhibitions, Héctor Esrawe and Ignacio Cadena’s Los Trompos and Jaime Hayon’s Tiovivo (up through Nov. 27), provided younger (and not so young) visitors the opportunity to interact with beautiful structures. Los Trompos translates to “spinning tops” and took the meaning literally with its playground-size playthings. Tiovivo planted large-scale sculptures in the piazza. With their hollow insides and attached stairs and slides, the cartoonish structures invited investigation. The museum attracted almost 1,700 people to the opening of The Rise of Sneaker Culture, a thorough collection that included about 160 pairs of shoes. Besides showcasing familiar footwear such as Run-DMC’s shell-toe Adidas, The Rise “highlighted the marriage between high fashion and street wear,” CL senior writer Rodney Carmichael wrote. In addition to pushing boundaries with fashion-forward and touch-friendly installations, the High slayed with the retrospective Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks, which presented pages from the late American artist’s journals and sketchbooks. What’s the High got planned next? Chances are, we’ll be there opening night. More at Best Museum

Browse Winners by Category

After Dark
After Dark
Cityscape
Cityscape
Consumer Culture
Consumer Culture
Index
Index
Oral Pleasures
Oral Pleasures
Poets, Artists & Madmen
Poets, Artists & Madmen