Rather excited about the opening of The Allure of the Automobile later this month at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. I’ve spent a great deal of time on the interactive site, watching the video and looking at highlights. Others with similar fascination for the golden age of automobiles, the breadth and intrigue of automobile design, and generally handsome cars should also be excited.

It’s all about speed, luxury, innovation, power, and a good number of other useful buzz words. Beautiful cars of all types are included in the exhibition – Corvettes, Jaguars, Packards – and the website already relays a good amount of personal stories submitted by visitors.

Having reviewed a number of car museums in the last year (especially those built by German brands) it’s quite lovely to see an art museum take a full survey of car design. Cincinnati Museum of Art, for example, regularly exhibits one car at a time. At High, you’ll be able to compare, contrast, and relish in all of automotive glory with aesthetics at the forefront.

The Allure of the Automobile runs from March 21 to June 20, 2010.

Highlights from The Allure of the Automobile follow.

Unfortunately Detroit is a pretty sad place, but that doesn’t mean visiting the Motor City is without great attractions. The Detroit Institute of Art is currently showing In The Company of Artists a photographic exploration of the lives of famous and creative individuals. The photographs come direct from the Institute’s collection and were taken by (to name some) Man Ray, Robert Mapplethorpe and Arnold Newman. Subjects, as you might imagine, are equally creative and famous. A range of lenses affords the opportunity to delve into the core subject and thread the needle over the course of just past a century of intellectual activity.

Above is a portait of Diane Arbus taken by Gary Winogrand, just one example of In the Company of Artists. The exhibit is on view until February 15, 2009.

The Tate Modern’s Rothko exhibition opened on September 26. Revolving around Rothko’s later works, and his works in series, the show explores his strategies of repetition and variations on single themes. Complementing the on-site is a well conceived web portion complete with gallery talks and interviews with the curators. The best of this comes in the sense of process gleaned from the interview. A great thing when museums unveil the curtain and join the visitor in the excitement of putting things together.

Rothko is open until February 1, 2009.

Working with the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, the Walker Arts Center is currently hosting the first museum retrospective of Eero Saarinen’s architecture — Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future. Best known (perhaps) for the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Saarinen was not drawn to merely the monumental. Residential commissions sprinkle in with icons (like the TWA Terminal at JFK). Saarinen’s approach was inclusive, as he let solutions to creative difficulty be led by location. The show will run until January 4, 2009.

Further images from Shaping the Future after the jump.

Illustrative 08 is the forth annual for the event dedicated to graphic art. 35 artists from across the globe converge on Zurich to exhibit new works. These range from the quirky to the serious, with everything in between. Wallpaper* was there, and offers a nice slide show of favorite works.

For those in Europe, the show is on until the end of the week.

A few favorites from Wallpaper*’s favorites after the jump.

One of the greatest strengths of the V&A (outside its astounding collections) is the organization of comprehensive and nuanced exhibitions related to distinct periods of design history. Art Deco and Modernism have been fleshed out, and now attention is turned to Cold War Modern: 1945-1970. This groundbreaking exhibition ties design to the socio-political milleu of the period. As they say “Art and design were not peripheral symptoms of politics during the Cold War: they played a central role in representing and sometimes challenging the dominant political and social ideas of the age.” The V&A also excels at related web content for their exhibitions, so while you wait for the show to tour, visit the site for an excellent time line of objects, ideas and events.

Cold War Modern is on view in South Kensington until January 11, 2009.

A sampling of Cold War Modern follows.

The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts is the only East Coast venue for the touring retrospective of artist Peter Saul. Throughout his career, Saul has tackled political subjects and poked fun at art history in large scale “historical epics.” The latter paintings have included work related to WWII and Christopher Columbus. Peter Saul: A Retrospective is the largest assembledge of Saul’s painting to be shown in the United States. On view until January 4, 2009.

Above is Peter Saul Self (1987)

Further images of Peter Saul’s work from the exhibition follows.

Helmut Lang is Back. The fashion designer has shaped many trends during his time at the Helmut Lang label, many of which we only see now becoming big, showing his vision and understanding of the matter. The fashion designer has since become an artist and Hannover in Germany is celebrating a solo exhibition entitled, “Alles Gleich Schwer.”

"Drawing on references as diverse as the folkloric rites of maypole ceremonies and the exploration of surrogate skin, Lang has created a series of installations, objects and possibilities that integrate an intimate knowledge of the human form with the personal mythologies and abstract arrangements of the world at large."

In collaboration with Absolut Vodka, the exhibition shows photographs, multimedia installations, sculptures and much more by the artist. “Alles Gleich Schwer” will be on view at the kestnergesellschaft August 31st – November 2nd. (via artschoolvets)

"For the first time in 25 years, a museum is putting on a major retrospective of Yves Saint-Laurent’s work. And while Love, opening today at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, decidedly favors womenswear (and deservedly so), there are still a few things for the gents—early sketches and drawings of his dabbling in menswear…" (via men.style)

For more information on the YSL show, visit mmfa.qc.ca.