Arts in Atlanta

Fox Theater

High Museum of Art

Atlanta has flourishing music, fine art, and theater scenes. The city has been called "hip-hop's center of gravity".^[1] Atlanta is also a major center of television production and is the hub of the nation's fourth-largest film industry.

Music

In music, Atlanta is a capital of hip hop, including Southern hip hop, of R&B and of neo soul. The city is the current home or birthplace of many hip-hop artists including Lil Jon, Ludacris, B.o.B. and Usher. It is also a center of gospel music where the Gospel Music Association Dove Awards take place. Atlanta also has strong live music, pop, rock, indie-rock, country, blues and jazz scenes, including artists such as the Indigo Girls, and Justin Bieber. From the 1920s through 1950s, Atlanta, with its many mill workers bringing their music with them from Appalachia, became a major center for country music.^[2]

Visual arts

Rise Up Atlanta, by Charlie Brouwer, was a temporary urban-art sculpture made of ladders erected in the East Side's Freedom Park

Atlanta is home to a growing, established visual arts community. In 2010, the city was ranked as the ninth-best city for the arts by American Style Magazine.^[3] Most of the city's art galleries are located in the Castleberry Hill and West Midtown neighborhoods. While every type of visual art is represented in the city, Atlanta is a major center for contemporary art, public art, and urban art.^[4] The growing Atlanta campus of Savannah College of Art and Design has brought in a steady stream of artists and curators.^[5]

Art museums

An exhibit at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center

In 2010, American Style Magazine ranked Atlanta as the ninth-best city for the arts.^[6] The renowned High Museum of Art is arguably the South's leading art museum and among the 100 most-visited art museums in the world. Other art institutions include the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA), the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, and the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory, containing the largest collection of ancient art in the Southeast.^[7]

Public art

Zimbabwe sculpture: a tradition in stone at Atlanta airport between courses T and A

The city's Office of Cultural Affairs administers a public art program,^[8] which include works such as Atlanta from the Ashes (The Phoenix), and Thornton Dial's The Bridge at John Lewis plaza in Freedom Park. The office also sponsors temporary exhibitions of art in public spaces such as "Elevate" in 2011. The Metropolitan Public Art Coalition also promotes public art in the city and stages occasional exhibitions.

The city's Aviation Arts program administers and art program at Atlanta's airport, including Zimbabwe Sculpture: a Tradition in Stone and the Deborah Whitehouse mural Spirit of Atlanta, which welcomes passengers as they arrive at baggage claim from the peoplemover.

The 22 miles (35 km) BeltLine corridor, a former rail corridor gradually being developed into an improved biking and walking trail, is home to the annual Art on the BeltLine exhibition. In 2011 66 visual and performance pieces were exhibited.^[9]

Street art

Street art on the BeltLine, 2012

Street art on the BeltLine, 2012

Although historically never a haven for street art^[10] like New York City or Los Angeles,^[11] street art is becoming more prominent in Atlanta. The Krog Street Tunnel in Cabbagetown is the city's best-known street art canvas, with much new street art also being created along the 22-mile BeltLine trail. In 2011 the city hosted the Living Walls street art conference and will co-host it with Albany, New York in 2012.

In May 2011 Atlanta established a Graffiti Task Force. Though in October 2011 the police arrested 7 persons designated as vandals, city officials assert that they have no intention of stifling the street art scene. The city's Office of Cultural Affairs selected 29 standout murals to avoid whitewashing including murals commissioned as part of the BeltLine, works created during the Living Walls conferences, but not the most famous street art space in the city, the Krog Street Tunnel. Many street artists and members of the arts community interviewed by Creative Loafing believe the city's efforts are misdirected or futile.^[12][13]

See also video of street art in Reynoldstown, Cabbagetown and Krog Street Tunnel.

Arts centers

Arts centers in Atlanta include King Plow Arts Center and the Goat Farm Arts Center in West Midtown, The Metropolitan in Adair Park and Studioplex in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood.

Galleries and art walks

There are small concentrations of galleries in the intown neighborhoods, including but not limited to Castleberry Hill, Buckhead, the Westside Arts District in West Midtown, at Studioplex in Old Fourth Ward, and along Ponce de Leon Avenue in Poncey-Highland. Each of those areas sponsors an art walk, usually monthly.^[14]

Theater

The city contains a flourishing theater community. Major theater groups include the Alliance Theater (part of the Woodruff Arts Center), which won the 2007 Regional Theatre Tony Award, the internationally-known Center for Puppetry Arts, Theatrical Outfit, Seven Stages Theater, Horizon Theater Company, improv group Dad's Garage, Actor's Express, and the Shakespeare Tavern. Black theater companies include True Colors and Jomandi Productions.

Other theater companies in Metro Atlanta include the Georgia Ensemble Theatre and Conservatory in Roswell, Onstage Atlanta in Decatur, the Academy Theater in Avondale Estates, Performing Arts North in Alpharetta, Theatre in the Square and the Children's Garden Theater in Marietta, and Act 3 Productions in Sandy Springs.^[15]

The Suzi Bass Awards and the Metropolitan Atlanta Theater Awards are two annual ceremonies honoring outstanding achievements in local theater.

The Atlanta Radio Theatre Company preserves, promotes, performs, and educatesg people about the art of audio theatre (radio drama).

Performing arts and music venues

Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre

In the city of Atlanta:

• Woodruff Arts Center - contains the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, High Museum of Art, Young Audiences and the 14th Street Playhouse
• Fox Theatre - theater, musical theater, concerts, award ceremonies and other special events
• Rialto Center for the Arts - performing arts
• Buckhead Theatre
• The Tabernacle
• Variety Playhouse and Seven Stages Theater
• The Masquerade - live music, mostly indie-rock, rock, metal

In Metro Atlanta, the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre and Gwinnett Center's performing arts center are prominent venues. Regional centers featuring a mix of the arts include the Elm Street Cultural Arts Village in Woodstock and the Jaqueline Casey Hudgens Center for the Arts (adjacent to Gwinnett Center) in Duluth.

Literature

Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Gone with the Wind, written in Atlanta and set in and around Atlanta

Atlanta is the home of many influential writers of the 20th century, including Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With the Wind, one of the best-selling books of all time; Alice Walker, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning and critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple; Alfred Uhry, playwright of Driving Miss Daisy, which deals with Jewish residents of Atlanta in the early 20th century; and Joel Chandler Harris, author of the Brer Rabbit children's stories. Famous journalists include Ralph McGill, the anti-segregationist editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. Atlanta is also the home of contemporary editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich, who is syndicated nationally to 150 newspapers.

Film and television

Atlanta has become a center for film and television production and counts the presence of Turner Studios, which produces content for the Turner Broadcasting family of stations; since 2008 the Tyler Perry Studios in Southwest Atlanta; and since 2010 the EUE/Screen Gems soundstages in Lakewood Heights, south Atlanta. Atlanta is the setting for popular TV shows such as the Real Housewives of Atlanta and Tyler Perry's series. Due to Perry, the "Housewives", and others, Atlanta is also known as a center of black entertainment in the U.S.^[16]

Films set in Atlanta include, most famously, Gone with the Wind (1939), as well as Little Darlings (1980), Sharky's Machine (1981), Outbreak (1995), Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns (2008), Life as We Know It (2010), and Contagion (2011).

Well-known television shows set in Atlanta include, from Tyler Perry Studios, House of Payne and Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns, The Real Housewives of Atlanta, nnumerous HGTV original productions. Since moving to BET for the 2011 season, The Game - as of January 2012 the highest rated ad-supported sitcom ever on cable - has been shot in Atlanta.^[17] Williams Street Productions has produced multiple Adult Swim series as well as Freaknik: The Musical at their Midtown Atlanta studios.

Film festivals

Atlanta is the host of the Atlanta Film Festival, an Academy Award qualifying, international film festival held every April and showcasing a diverse range of independent films, including genre films such as horror and sci-fi. Other film festivals include the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, Peachtree Village International Film Festival the Atlanta Asian Film Festival, the Out on Film gay film festival, Independent Film Month, Atlanta Film Festival 365, Atlanta Underground Film Festival, Atlanta Docufest, and the Buried Alive horror film fest.

Horror and zombie themes

Atlanta serves as the filming location for many horror themed productions, including the TV series The Walking Dead, Teen Wolf, Vampire Diaries, and Drop Dead Diva, and the 2009 comedy Zombieland. In addition, the horror festival Atlanta HorrorFest is held yearly in October, and features the Buried Alive Film Fest, bands and a zombie walk. These factors prompted Atlanta magazine to dub the city the "Zombie Capital of the World",^[18][19] and the New York Times to recognize Atlanta's stature in the genre.^[20]

Marching arts

Atlanta is also a major hub for the marching arts. The city is home of Spirit Drum and Bugle Corps, which competes in Drum Corps International, and the Alliance Drum and Bugle Corps and CorpsVets Drum and Bugle Corps, both of which participate in the Drum Corps Associates circuit.

References

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