Kaleidoscopic quilt patterns. The drama of athletic achievement. Avant-garde Dutch couture. These standout art shows at museums large and small are sure to leave an impression.
“Drawings by Bill Traylor from the MMFA Collection” at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
On view until October 26, Montgomery, Alabama
Bill Traylor, a self-taught Alabama artist born into slavery in the mid-nineteenth century, is known for his expressive drawings and paintings, mostly created during his time living in Alabama’s state capital. Often rendered on the backs of discarded cardboard, Traylor’s depictions of humans and animals appear simple at first glance but tell a vivid story of the post-slavery South.
“Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture” at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
On view until January 6, Bentonville, Arkansas
Organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Get in the Game features more than one hundred works of art about and created by athletes, offering glimpses into intersections of sports and contemporary culture. Pieces like a playable lotus flower ping-pong table, a reenactment of Billie Jean King’s “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match, and ceramic art honoring Kobe Bryant’s legacy capture the glory and agony of the game.
“Then and There, Here and Now: Contemporary Visions of North Carolina” at the North Carolina Museum of Art
On view until January 18, Raleigh, North Carolina
The collection at this free-to-visit museum in the state capital spans 5,000 years and spills outdoors into an 164-acre park. This exhibition features works by artists who are reckoning with memory, social justice, and climate change across the state. It “showcases a variety of deeply personal perspectives: some with a poetic nostalgia for home, some more contemplative about the legacy of our state’s history, and others perhaps still unresolved,” says curator Andrew Wang. On display is work by North Carolina photographer and printmaker Beth Grabowski; crankies—moving panoramas—by Asheville-based Jessica C. White; and ceramic handmade books by Greensboro artist Catherine Cross Tsintzos.
“Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight” at the Mississippi Museum of Art
November 1–January 25, Jackson, Mississippi
This comprehensive collection of Overstreet’s abstract works showcases the late artist’s visionary role within the Black Arts Movement—his geometric constructions from the sixties, his series of suspended acrylic paintings from the seventies known as Flight Pattern, and his massive Facing the Door of No Return series from the nineties. In Overstreet’s own words, the works have a tendency, “like birds in flight, to take off, to lift up, rather than be held down.”
“In the Summer Sun of the Hillside: The Agricultural South” at the Morris Museum of Art
On view until February 8, Augusta, Georgia
Drawn from the Morris Museum’s permanent collection, this exhibition celebrates everyday agricultural Southern landscapes and the deep influence of farming on the region’s culture via seventeen little-seen paintings. “Unlike their Northern counterparts, who created monumental landscapes and awe-inspiring scenes that tended to emphasize the vastness of nature and the insignificance of man, Southern painters have always tended to focus on smaller, more personal scenes that have a narrative quality, all viewed from a human perspective,” says Morris Museum of Art director Kevin Grogan. Featured artists include Louisiana’s Elemore Morgan Jr., Richmond, Virginia–born Edgar Nye, and Tennessee painter Louis E. Jones.
“Viktor&Rolf. Fashion Statements“ at the High Museum of Art
On view until February 8, Atlanta, Georgia
The High will be the exclusive U.S. venue to present this retrospective of Dutch fashion designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren. Organized by curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot in eight distinctive chapters, the exhibition debuted in Munich in February 2024 and features more than one hundred of the duo’s avant-garde works, worn by such celebrities as Julia Roberts, Cardi B, Lady Gaga, Madonna, and Tilda Swinton. “Fashion Statements demonstrates how wearable art is among the most provocative and inventive forms of contemporary design,” says the High’s director, Rand Suffolk.
“Under the Cover of Knowledge: Betty Ford-Smith’s Pinecone Quilts” at Appleton Museum of Art
On view until February 22, Ocala, Florida
This exhibition, the first major solo show by Sebring, Florida–based artist Betty Ford-Smith, showcases intricate hand-sewn quilts that echo dynamic patterns found in nature. Ford-Smith’s quilts, which weigh up to thirty pounds, span up to nine feet, and require more than six months of work, draw inspiration from nineteenth- and early twentieth-century pinecone quilts, some of which are on display alongside her contemporary creations at the museum.
