The Atlanta Artwork Honest (AAF), produced by the occasions agency AMP, returned for its second version final week as a shiny spot not simply on the Atlanta artwork calendar however within the regional panorama. The honest (25-28 September) illuminated Atlanta’s strengths as a cultural centre. Amid the upbeat crowd, expensive cocktails and the anticipated combination of economic and experimental artwork, truths emerged relating to Atlanta’s distinctive id: its resourcefulness; the power of its sturdy, interwoven, inventive neighborhood; an aggressive, unwavering propensity for friendliness and, maybe surprisingly for a time when the humanities are dealing with devaluation, a pattern towards optimism.
The honest returned to Pullman Yards within the metropolis’s residential Kirkwood neighbourhood. The venue, a historic former railway depot, has confronted criticism from native teams for its lack of consideration to crowd management, parking and noise.
Regardless of its fraught popularity, Pullman Yards is a superb area for an artwork honest. Maybe conscious of the neighborhood considerations, the venue just lately launched an artist-in-residence programme, which was highlighted and promoted on the honest. The massive industrial area hosted 75 native, nationwide and worldwide galleries and humanities organisations, in addition to a stage for AAF’s standard theatre programming.
The honest’s organisers and exhibitors appeared higher acclimated to the area on their second outing. Final 12 months, many contributors and attendees had been experiencing their first-ever artwork honest. The power was extra nervous, and the anxious query main up the opening was some model of: “Is that this going to be respectable?” This time, contributors knew what to anticipate, trusted AMP extra and knew how you can use the stands to their benefit.
A panel throughout the 2025 version of the Atlanta Artwork Honest Photograph by Walker Bankson. Courtesy of AMP, a division of a21.
Round 3,500 individuals attended the VIP preview and opening night time on 25 September, in keeping with the organisers. A lot of them appeared to have obtained their VIP tickets at no cost through a broadly circulated hyperlink. A number of exhibitors mentioned they solely realized they had been going to take part within the honest a couple of weeks beforehand and got a reduced price on their stands. If the organisers had been involved about participation and attendance, the changes they made appeared to work—the honest was robustly attended on daily basis.
Adamantly Atlanta
A number of components differentiate this honest from the norm and mark it as distinctly Atlantan. For one, chatting with strangers is non-negotiable. The key weapon of the Atlanta artwork scene may be friendliness. It’s mentioned that to develop into a part of the Atlanta artwork crowd, all you need to do is present up, you then’re in.
“They wish to discuss to you. They wish to interact. It’s not the identical whenever you go to the gala’s [in New York or Los Angeles]. Folks stroll by, you will not get spoken to. It’s only a totally different power. However right here you need to discuss, you need to smile, you need to greet,” says Lauren Jackson Harris, final 12 months’s visitor curator of the honest and the co-founder of Black Girls in Visible Arts , an exhibitor this 12 months. “We wish to have that familial really feel.”
Ato Ribeiro, an artist who confirmed his work on the honest as a part of Atlanta Up to date’s studio artwork programme, described the second version as extra in step with town’s ethos.
“The id of Atlanta is seeping extra into it,” Ribeiro says. “I’m beginning to see how we’re capable of take an artwork honest, nonetheless make it hit all of the marks, however convey that home slow-down really feel to it the place it’s like we will saunter via. It’s the Southern pacing.”
Marc Horowitz, an artist primarily based in Los Angeles who confirmed charmingly skinny, thickly painted portrait “slices” within the narrowest sales space on the honest (which he particularly requested to finest praise the work), put it one other means.
“I preserve describing it as being post-cringe,” says Horowitz. “No person actually cares right here, and all people will get alongside. I’m telling you, it’s considerably utopic. It’s means much less pretentious.”
The sentiment was meant as a praise, however the artwork neighborhood in Atlanta cares an amazing deal and never everybody will get alongside. There’s a substantial amount of pretension if you happen to search for it, and town’s funding constructions make it removed from an artists’ utopia. However there’s something to Horowitz’s concept of post-cringe and this impression that everybody obtained alongside, whereas nobody cares a lot about being cool. It may be laborious for guests from Los Angeles or New York to know the expertise of being an artist or artwork employee within the American South, the place the shortage of sources and lack of presidency help is so excessive that the neighborhood appears to have bypassed competitiveness and gone straight to emphasising resource-sharing and mutual assist, or at the least attempting to. There’s, in absolute seriousness, no different approach to survive.
Appropriately then, a trademark of AAF is its affordability, particularly in comparison with main gala’s like Artwork Basel Miami Seaside or The Armory Present. This permits regional galleries to showcase their artists to nationwide and worldwide audiences. The Nashville-based gallery Tinney Up to date travelled to Atlanta for its first honest partially due to the proximity and the cost-effectiveness.
Kimia Kline, Depart Mild On, 2025 Courtesy of the artist and Tinnery Up to date
“We love the truth that it was a smaller honest to start with, and that it was regional. We felt like there was extra purpose to put money into the chance to take part in a good that felt extra communal,” says Joshua Edward Bennett, Tinney Up to date’s director. “The truth that there’s native buy-in made us really feel extra assured in that call. To be fairly frank, the price to get in was additionally very interesting. Quite a lot of the larger gala’s appear slightly bit extra prohibitive for a gallery of our scale and of our value factors.”
The gallery confirmed a compelling choice on its stand, together with Depart Mild On (2025), a big ink-and-pastel piece by Kimia Kline wherein a kaleidoscope of pink, yellow and orange our bodies, arms and hair wrapped round one another. Bennett says he was happy with the gross sales and described the gallery’s AAF expertise as a “nice success”.
One other standout on the honest was Third Ear, Second Pores and skin, an exhibition of sculptures organised by Melissa Messina, this 12 months’s visitor curator, that includes works by Krista Clark, Sonya Yong James and Vadis Turner. Clark’s work, with its mixture of heavy concrete parts and delicate picket rods, acted as a commentary on labour and building, significantly unfinished or in-progress building.
Sculptures by Krista Clark in Third Ear, Second Pores and skin, an exhibition on the 2025 Atlanta Artwork Honest curated by Melissa Messina Photograph by Walker Bankson. Courtesy of AMP, a division of a21.
The small-but-mighty Black Girls in Visible Arts stand, curated by Harris, confirmed works by three Southern-based Black girls artists: Candace Caston, Victoria Dugger and Ariel Dannielle. Caston, who additionally had work on Tennessee Gallery’s stand, is an rising artist with a watch for slick collage. Her works play with perspective and form, giving kind to a sort of surrealism. Dugger, whose star is rapidly rising, combines shiny textile works using beads, fur, and embroidery with parts of collage to create subtly subversive scenes of American life.
Standout threads
Robust textile work was a outstanding function of AAF this 12 months. Notable examples included Zipporah Thompson’s frenetic, deconstructed tapestries, which use fraying netting and loosely related materials to meld references to a splintered pure and non secular world (and had been proven by the Atlanta-based Whitespace Gallery). Qualeasha Wooden, who combines parts of web and social media tradition with Black Femme iconography and conventional craft-making, introduced EBONY.ONLINE (2022) within the spectacular stand of TFA Advisory, which relies in North Carolina (and in addition confirmed ceramic works by Atlanta favorite Jiha Moon). Jonathan Carver Moore Gallery from San Francisco showcased Adana Tillman, who makes use of heavy quilting and unconventional patterns to depict moments of Black home life, equivalent to two girls taking part in playing cards outside amid a dreamy backyard scene.
Zipporah Camille Thompson, Déjà vu, 2025 Courtesy of the artist and Whitespace Gallery
The honest was not the one main occasion occurring in Atlanta final week. The Artwork Writing and Publishing Symposium, introduced by Artwork Papers, occurred at Ponce Metropolis Market, drawing many writers and critics to town in addition to some honest contributors. In line with Paul Salsieder, the supervisor on the Portrait Society Gallery in Milwaukee, one of many deciding components for taking part within the AAF was the draw of the symposium. Moreover, Website, an formidable one-night-only artwork occasion held on the historic Goat Farm in West Midtown, drew enormous crowds for its second 12 months, with many honest contributors coming to see the numerous installations and pop-up exhibitions.
Between the welcoming environment, robust regional participation and tighter organisation, the AAF appears to have gotten its sea legs and demonstrated Atlanta’s key strengths in each its tradition and geographical location. On the whole, attendees and contributors appeared upbeat. Exhibitors reported that gross sales went nicely sufficient, and the organisers mentioned attendance was up by 1,500 individuals in comparison with final 12 months, with a complete of 13,500 guests over the honest’s 4 days.
In fact, the monetary realities of the humanities within the South nonetheless loom and it stays to be seen whether or not the honest will renew its contract and return in 2026. Within the arts basically, and particularly within the South, the success of an occasion doesn’t assure its continuation if the cash is just not flowing. However Atlanta is resilient, and the systemic devaluation of the humanities and funding cuts are nothing new. No matter whether or not or not AAF returns, the artwork scene in Atlanta is just not going wherever.
