Earlier this year, I was honored to receive an invitation to join a burgeoning group of female-identifying curators called CurateHers here in Atlanta. With a purpose that includes sharing resources, collaborations, advocation, and networking for members, this group has grown to include some incredible curators in the metro Atlanta region.
Several of this group’s members are now serving on Atlanta Art Fair’s advisory board, and as such have insider knowledge into the art activations and exhibits that we can expect to see during the return of Atlanta Art Week and the inaugural Atlanta Art Fair.
Presented below are invaluable insights from seven members about what art exhibitions and happenings they are particularly excited to see on display during the festivities.
Shannon Morris
Director, Spruill Gallery
www.spruillarts.org
“Spruill Gallery presents After an Endless Embrace, featuring Kate Burke and Aineki Traverso, whose works are part of a two-person collaborative exhibition… through October 31, 2024. The accompanying program, Imagining the Internal, 7:00 p.m., October 1, offers insight into Burke and Traverso’s individual and collaborative practices while making their new work, which revolves around ideas of nature, technology, and humanism. The two Atlanta-based artists discuss their inspirations and processes, engaging in a meaningful conversation and subsequent Q&A.
Inside the Atlanta Art Fair, Spruill Gallery Cultural Partner Booth presents Atlanta-based contemporary artists Steven L. Anderson, Gavin Bernard, Kate Burke, In Kyoung Chun, Manty Dey, Heather Deyling, Sabre Esler, Cynthia Farnell, Claire Paul, and Aineki Traverso. The Installation of the artists’ small works invites viewers to engage with artists and gallery staff members who will share the history of the Victorian Homestead and the gallery’s current vision.”
Photo credit: Randy Pace
Denise Jackson
Curator and Founder, Town + Culture
www.townandculture.com
“When I talk to people around the country and abroad, there’s a growing curiosity about Atlanta’s art scene. We’ve been known for our music and film industries, and now our art market is finally getting the attention it deserves, thanks to the incredible artists based here. I’m telling friends that the first week of October is the perfect time to visit Atlanta and see what’s happening in our art world.
Conversely, when I talk to people in Atlanta, I find that not everyone knows where to experience art outside of the High Museum. I hope they discover that we’re hosting an art fair this year, and if they’ve never been, this is the perfect chance to experience one. It’s a fantastic opportunity to see dozens of galleries in one place.
Personally, I’m looking forward to the panels and conversations that will be happening during the fair and Atlanta Art Week. The art fair has a robust theater program planned, and I’m particularly interested in the panel led by Nate Freeman, Cultural Correspondent for Vanity Fair, titled Atlanta’s Cultural Renaissance, which will explore the city’s wider cultural community.
I’m also excited to be working with the artist Ralph Ziman and his team to exhibit the Casspir Project at the Atlanta Art Fair and Atlanta Contemporary, followed by the Emma Darnell Aviation Museum. Ziman, who was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, has created a multi-dimensional exhibit that involved dozens of artisans from South Africa. The project carries a powerful message of transforming symbols of oppression into icons of peace. It’s wonderful to see all the momentum in Atlanta’s art scene coming together.”
Kate Chesnutt Connell
Founder and Curator, Labyrinth Curation
www.labyrinthcuration.com
“Inside the Atlanta Art Fair, I have partnered with Shannon Morris of The Curator’s Studio LLC, and The Millennium Gate Museum to present an installation by conceptual artist Pilar. The Millennium Gate Museum’s mission to preserve and protect Georgia’s history, art, culture and philanthropic character aligns with Pilar’s eco-conscious artistic vision for PORTALS.
This series showcases Atlanta’s greenspaces and nature alongside elements and byproducts of modern society – expressing “the new natural”, where industry and technology coexist alongside humanity and other living organisms. An additional activation, Portal01 by Pilar, greets travelers inside the atrium Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and was organized by Labyrinth Curation and The Curator’s Studio.
Outside the fair, Morris and I have joined forces with The Bakery, Amanda Norris & Willow Goldstein, to present Boundary Lines at The Supermarket (638 North Highland Avenue NE). Boundary Lines is a pop-up group exhibition highlighting the contrast of modern society, industry, and nature. There will be a private opening on Thursday, October 3rd from 6:30-10:00 pm. Boundary Lines will open to the public Friday from 6pm-10pm during Supermarket’s Night Market, all day on Saturday, Sunday from 12pm-5pm, and Monday 6:30pm-8:30pm.”
Birney Robert
Curator and Director of External Engagement, Georgia Tech
www.arts.gatech.edu
“Georgia Tech has always cultivated creative students who have become leaders in the arts and creative industries. The arts have also been an essential mechanism for building campus community and for driving creativity and innovation across all disciplines of study.
Arts at Tech represents a paradigm shift for the Institute. By championing the arts and supporting creative research and practice as scholarship, we recognize the arts as integral to our mission to champion innovation and advance the human condition. We also acknowledge that art has intrinsic value for makers, participants, and observers.
During the Atlanta Art Fair, Georgia Tech will showcase three artists working at the intersection of technology (Bojana Ginn – current Artist-in-Residence at Georgia Tech’s Library, Noura Howell – assistant professor in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech, and Samuel Thurman – graduate student in the College of Design at Georgia Tech). During the Atlanta Art Week, Georgia Tech will host a panel discussion about art in the digital age on October 1 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. in the The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design.
There are two exhibits happening on campus during the week of September 30 – October 6; one at the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking and the other at the Price Gilbert Library Gallery for their Dataseum: A Place to Play with Data exhibit.”
Cynthia Farnell
Owner and Operator of Cynthia Farnell Projects
www.cynthiafarnell.com
“Cynthia Farnell Projects (CFP) is a new Atlanta gallery focusing on sculpture and works on paper. Our premiere exhibition, Equinox Autumn 24… will be on view until November 10, 2024.
The exhibit will overlap the Atlanta Art Week and the Atlanta Art Fair. Participating artists are Emily Baker, Hope Benson, Blaise Dell, Serena Perrone, Allen Perterson, Frank Poor, and Lisa Schnellinger. The aim of the exhibition is to create a sense of equilibrium via the artists’ anti-monumental approaches to the practice of sculpture. Horizontality replaces verticality, softness counters hardness, and intimacy supplants alienation in works crafted in stone, metal, ceramic, glass and paper. Artists’ themes range from labor to hybridity, to the passage of time and the inaccuracies of memory.
A bit about me; I am an artist and curator whose love of sculpture and gardens merge in my backyard venture. The gallery encompasses the garden of my East Atlanta home with flat files and additional display areas inside my circa 1930s cottage.
Atlanta combines a temperate climate with a dynamic sculpture scene creating perfect conditions for a gallery concentrating on outdoor work. The CFP program features two focused group exhibitions a year, one in fall and one in spring. CFP offers a full slate of curatorial services including project management and exhibition concept development.”
Sharon Moskowitz
Founder and Director of srmARTconnect
www.srmartconnect.com
“There are so many arts happenings coming to Brookhaven during the month of October, many of which will be promoted on the Explore Brookhaven website in coming weeks. I can’t wait to see this city come to life with art exhibitions and theater performances.
On my end, srmARTconnect started as a passion to follow and support arts organizations that are making a difference in their communities. It then grew into active arts advocacy and ultimately an arts consultancy firm/organization.
Whether it’s artists, collectors or galleries, I assist them by connecting to buyers, designers, and to collectors. The Atlanta Art Fair will be absolutely an incredible opportunity to provide one on one introduction and connections that can sometimes take a longer or virtual process.
During Atlanta Art Week, don’t miss the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art’s group exhibition titled The Gaze which examines the intersection of disability, accessibility, and ableism. The Museum is located on the third floor of the University’s library and has an incredible permanent collection. It is worth the trip to Brookhaven!”
Photo credit: David Clifton-Strawn
Robin Bernat
Owner and Curator, Poem 88
www.poem88.net
“Poem 88 has the unique mission of combining a rigorous sense of the avant garde with a commitment to fairness as a concept. Whether it comes to ensuring representation of women and older artists or challenging institutions to serve as a model of fairness for the community, Poem 88 has been at the forefront of ensuring that art is about more than commerce.
In the first ever Atlanta Art Fair, Poem 88 will present the work of four artists with whom we’ve worked for many years: Susan Seydel Cofer, Brendan Carroll, legacy pieces from the estate of Phyllis Alterman Franco, and Elizabeth K. Porcel. All of these artists present their observations of nature through landscape, light effects, and biological processes in varying degrees of lusciousness. Susan Cofer creates landscapes and biomorphic shapes through the nearly implausible mark-making of layered vertical lines in color pencil. Forms seem lit from a primordial light.
Likewise, Elizabeth Porcel’s works on paper imagine surreal landscapes littered with the rich detritus of tree trunks, snake skin, and viscera. Brendan Carroll, in a nostalgic nod to abstract expressionism, dives headlong into the physicality of painting presenting images made from thick, waxy impasto. Finally, The legacy works from Phyllis Alterman Franco meditate on evening light, waterscapes, and birds in flight.
We are eager to introduce these works to new audiences. The fair is sure to attract and celebrate the wealth of artistic talent that resides in Atlanta.”
