“This allows for a true celebration of all that photography can be - a multifaceted art form with the power to change lives and connect people.” “The ACP festival provides a comprehensive platform not only for people to experience our events, but to participate as creators,” says ACP Executive Director Amy Miller. This panoply of activity takes place at site-specific outdoor installations including the BeltLine, arts facilities, museums, galleries, retail businesses, and special venues spread across metro Atlanta. Billed as the largest community photography event in America, the 2019 edition of the ACP festival, which begins in mid-September and runs through the end of October, features more than 100 happenings including five lectures, three professional development workshops, a photobook fair, a film series, and numerous exhibits. That’s how it works.Įntering its third decade, Atlanta Celebrates Photography (ACP) - is both an annual festival and the name of the organization responsible for staging the event. “The work along Edgewood and in Cabbagetown, the Krog Tunnel, these works that stay up for a few months and are then replaced by new work - this kind of activity creates a vibrancy and excitement lacking in many cities.”įrom gleaming white halls and walls to sandblasted slabs of brick and concrete to just about any flat accessible surface with a sightline, Atlanta’s visual artists, curators and gallery owners use whatever means are available to satisfy the muse. “The street art trend is really exciting,” says Shaw. At the same time, public art, street art, mural painting, and graffiti are exerting a particular influence on the Atlanta art scene for which the city is becoming increasingly recognized nationally and internationally. Otherwise, the more things change, the more stalwart venues, such as the High Museum, Atlanta Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, the major arts institutions and fine art galleries, keep moving forward with their respective missions. “People, particularly young people, are continually trying to reinvent the art scene.” “Atlanta’s strong suit for the 40-something years I’ve been here is how incredibly active the grassroots community is,” says Louise Shaw, curator of the Senser Museum at the Centers for Disease Control and cofounder of Idea Capital, an arts funding group. With the Goat Farm closing and morphing into who-knows-what the construction of The MET continuing apace and attracting entities like MINT and Mammal Gallery and The Bakery executing its inspiring, if sometimes bewilderingly eclectic, strategy with characteristic DIY aplomb (while facing a move in the next year, as the lease on the arts center’s Warner Street building will not be renewed), the west side is the best side for seeking out the edges of Atlanta’s art/art music/art performance scene. Same as it ever was, the visual arts scene in Atlanta is in a state of flux, particularly at the street level where the West and Southwest flanks of downtown mark the next major front for the newest of the new to appear.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |