Elodie Saint-Louis grew up just outside of Atlanta and spent her teenage years visiting the city. Last week, she returned for Atlanta Art Fair.
I found myself thinking about legacy while in Atlanta for the second edition of the Atlanta Art Fair. I grew up in a suburb forty minutes away and started visiting the city as a teenager. Like many people who leave the place they’re from and return years later, I came back to a place I didn’t fully recognize. A number of impactful developments had cropped up since my departure in 2014, from the Beltline—a 22-mile corridor of trails, shops, parks, and housing that threads itself through the city, connecting the city’s core neighborhoods—to Ponce City Market, a 16-acre mixed-use center with a food hall, retail stores, and corporate offices.
It’s impossible to traverse the city and not consider its fascinatingly complex history. Established in 1836 as the end of the line for the Western & Atlantic railroad, Atlanta soon transformed into the South’s most vital commercial and transportation hub. It’s where, as every Georgian learns in school, a decisive battle of the Southern campaign of the Civil War took place, a crucial turning point that left the city in ashes and crippled the Confederacy for good. A hundred years later Atlanta would become the epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement, its heartbeat and soul. I was reminded of that legacy as I drove down Andrew Young Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr Drive.
Like many places in the South, the past is forever jutting up against the present in Atlanta, impossible to ignore. Pullman Yards, the site of the Atlanta Art Fair, was originally a manufacturing plant that produced fertilizer bombs during World War I. The Coca-Cola Company, a start-up at the time, moved in afterwards. The Pullman Company, famous for its luxurious rail service, purchased the building in 1922. The company soon became one of the largest employers of African-American men, who became known as “The Pullman Porters.” These men would go on to establish the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, the first all-Black labor union in the United States. Their efforts would lay the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement.
When Hollywood came to town, Pullman Yards became a destination for productions like Baby Driver, Divergent, and The Hunger Games. It took on a new life when Adam Rosenfelt and Maureen Meulen, former film producers from Los Angeles, bought it from the state in 2017 with the desire to transform the 153,000 square foot property into a thriving destination for art and culture.
Curated by Nato Thompson and Melissa Messina, the second edition of the Atlanta Art Fair successfully continued the momentum of the first. The South’s cultural offerings are often woefully overlooked, overshadowed by coastal cities like Los Angeles, Miami, or New York; it was refreshing to see art that emphasized the region.
Messina, who serves as Executive Director of the Mildred Thompson Estate, chose three Southern female abstract artists to create works for the fair—Krista Clark, Sonya Yong James and Vadis Turner—in homage to Mildred Thompson, a long-overlooked pioneer of Abstract Expressionism who spent the last decades of her life in Atlanta. Other notable contributions in the Special Projects category included Championship Banner by Mickalene Thomas and To Reflect Everything, an outdoor installation by Ryan Van Der Hout.
A new addition to the fair was the Balentine Prize, which recognizes an emerging artist from Atlanta or regional South. Caroline Allison of ZieherSmith received the prize for Book of Hours (Nones), a contemplative three-dimensional photographic work that draws inspiration from South’s skyscapes.
The fair’s strongest exhibitors spoke directly to the city and its occupants. One such booth was Jonathan Carver Moore, who presented works by Adrian Burrell, Mary W.D. Graham, Carrie Ann Plank, and Adana Tillman. Graham, who was featured in the Emerging Artists Program at the Museum of the African Diaspora, exhibited a series of oil portraits on deconstructed paper bags and linen. Titled Value Test: Brown Paper, the series references the colorism of the brown paper bag test, in which African-American fraternities, sororities, churches, and other social organizations would determine entry based on skin color; individuals whose skin color was darker than the bag would be denied. Each portrait is fictional, a composite of faces created from digital collages. Graham reflects on this complicated legacy while challenging standards of beauty and value.
Fairgoers were especially drawn to photographs by Oakland-based photographer Adrian Burrell, Hot Comb in particular. Many attendees commented that the photograph, in which Burell’s grandmother sits in front of a stove and mirror, hot comb in hand, conjured memories of their own grandmothers.
A finalist for the Balentine Prize and recipient of the Pullman Yards Artist Residency, Atlanta-based textile artist Adana Tillman emphasizes joy, freedom of expression, and diasporic pride in her deftly rendered fabric portraits. Tillman’s practice started in her youth when she would assist her mother with various quilting projects. Tillman returned to quilting in 2016 as a reprieve from her 9 to 5. Her first works sold quickly, ushering a new career as an artist.
Works featuring fiber appeared throughout the fair. Among them was Untitled (Threads and Scraps), 2022 by Rosemary Ollison, represented by Portrait Society Gallery of Contemporary Art. The self-taught 83-year old artist, whose first solo museum exhibition is currently on view at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, fabricates her spiritually-charged tapestries in her two-bedroom apartment, repurposing materials like leather, beads, denim, and bones to create lively abstract works that recall Alma Thomas, Rosie Lee Tompkins, and Sonia Delunay.
Rising star Qualeasha Wood, whose work is included in Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Sizz Beats and Alicia Keys, presented a large-scale tapestry titled EBONY.ONLINE, 2022. Wood incorporates digital technologies, Catholic imagery, and references to pop culture and the Internet to interrogate the fetishization of Black femmes online.
Assemblage was another recurring motif at the fair, evident in compelling works by Della Wells (Portrait Society Gallery of Contemporary Arts), James Macdonnell (Smith Contemporary) and Lovie Olivia (Tinney Contemporary). Wells, drawing from her childhood, creates collages that depict a speculative world she calls Mamboland, a fantastic elsewhere full possibility. I sensed Romare Bearden’s influence in these works; it was a pleasure, then, to see his monotypes displayed at Jerald Melberg Gallery.
The fair offered plenty of local highlights reflective of Atlanta’s top-tier gallery offerings: Alan Avery Art Company (the longest sustained contemporary art gallery in the Southeast), Black Art in America, Gerber Fine Art, and Jackson Fine Arts. Gerber Fine Art displayed works by Keith Haring, Rashid Johnson, and Frank Stella. On offer at Alan Avery were photographs by Carrie Mae Weems, a print by Faith Ringgold, and paintings by Michael Howell, whose representation by the gallery was announced earlier this month. Other notable highlights were sketches by Shanequa Gay (Jackson Fine Art) and new works by Burkina Faso-born artist Saïdou Dicko (Jackson Fine Arts).
This year’s fair included plenty of first-time exhibitors, including Ella West Gallery, located in Durham, North Carolina. An outstanding booth, the gallery presented works by Clarence Heyward and Joël Mamboka Mkuma. Heywood paints his subjects chroma green, a reference to Chroma Key, also known as “green screen” technology. He started using the color following the death of George Floyd. Floyd’s death galvanized Heyward, who wanted to make work about the subject in a manner that felt innovative. Heyward created Invisible Man, a self-portrait in which he depicts himself in the position Floyd was in when he was killed. This usage of chroma green represented a crucial shift in his practice. One couldn’t help but be arrested by his paintings.
Borderlands Art, hailing from Kampala, Uganda, had their US debut at the fair, displaying works by Laeila Adjovi, Charity Atukunda, and Gloria Kiconco. Rooted in a Pan-African and diasporic perspective, the gallery supports artists who make environmentally-conscious work. Laeila Adjovi investigates the history of cotton—a material rich with meaning—in a series of cyanotypes printed on Lokassa cotton.
The Melrose Gallery, located in Johannesburg, also had their debut at this year’s fair, showcasing a powerful array of works by Southern African artists Samuel Allerton, Carol Cauldwell, Ayanda Mabulu, Dr. Esther Mahlangu, and Clint Strydom.
Martin Art Projects, another formidable gallery from South Africa, presented paintings from a recent series by Mohau Modisakeng uThugela. uThugela, interested in ritual, depicts the spiritual tradition of bathing in the Thukela River. His figures—awash in vivid greens and blues—exist in the spiritual realm, emitting an otherworldly glow.
This year’s fair confirms Atlanta’s status as a cultural force in its own right, a hub that deserves greater respect and recognition. I left the fair feeling enthused, proud to hail from such a resilient and ever-changing place. Art lovers would be wise to keep their eyes on Atlanta. Atlanta—and the South in general—has always had something to say. It’s up to the rest of the country, and world, to listen.
Words by Elodie Saint-Louis
