“Sometimes you have to bring the art out of the museum doors and to the people,” says Daniel Fuller, curator of the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. “If we want more people looking at and talking about contemporary art, it makes little sense to just sit back and hope for the audience to come to us.”
To bring art to the people, the Contemporary is introducing its own booth at the Starlight Drive-In Swap Meet, a weekend event that has brought in merchants for 66 years running. The Contemporary’s project, titled Once you’ve seen one shopping center you’ve seen a mall, will take place on five Saturdays in November and December, beginning November 14.
With a various array of over 85 vendors, the swap meet is sure to raise conversations. Market regulars will have the chance to view art they may not have seen otherwise, while art goers can view art outside of its element.
Fuller says that “the swap meet is just so incredibly diverse in what people are buying and selling that the hope is to play it week-to-week, get to know some of the vendors and what they are selling.” In order to fully take part in the exchange, Fuller will purchase an item from a different vendor each week with the goal of selling it as art in the Contemporary’s shop.
The first artist to be featured is New York-based Dena Yago, who is originally from Macon, Georgia. Jane Fox Hipple, who lives in Montgomery, Alabama, is next, followed by Stephen Collier from New Orleans, Elizabeth Atterbury from Portland, Maine, and Anthony Campuzano, a Pennsylvania artist.
“It’s about exposure, exposing the swap meet’s typical audience to our work and our regulars to the beauty of the world of this market,” says Fuller.
Elizabeth Vogan graduated from the University of Georgia with a BA in studio art. She is currently BURNAWAY’s editorial intern.
