The VIP preview for Atlanta’s first major art fair was a hit, dealers and locals said. It is yet to be seen how significant sales will be over the fair’s entire four-day run, or whether a national fair platform will help Atlanta—long a creative breeding hub for Southern culture and the entertainment industry—develop a broader collector base capable of sustaining strong commercial infrastructure.
Organisers said around 3,500 people attended the evening preview of the inaugural Atlanta Art Fair, held on Thursday (3 October). The aisles of the Pullman Yards venue, a former industrial complex, were busy well into the evening. There was a sense of excitement among attendees, many of whom were local to the area, happy to be witnessing the city’s first major commercial fair, with around 60 participating galleries. The preview was just as busy and buzzing as any major fair opening in New York or Los Angeles.
Gallerists taking part said that enthusiasm did not necessarily result in a rush of sales during the first hours of the VIP preview. Some added they would have to wait and see if sales close over the weekend—several dealers speculated the Atlanta Art Fair might prove to be like another southern expo, the Dallas Art Fair, which is known to be a fair with a “slower burn”.
“We want to make sales, but we also see this as a new marketing opportunity,” says Jamie Bourgeois, director at Spalding Nix Fine Art, which was founded in Atlanta more than 20 years ago. “It’s wonderful to get in front of people. We want to make connections that will hopefully become sales, and also relationships.”
Spalding Nix’s stand highlights four artists from the gallery’s roster based in Georgia, three of them in Atlanta itself, Bourgeois says: Katherine Sandoz, Caroline Bullock, Jerushia Graham and Corrina Sephora.
“There are a lot of galleries here in Atlanta that support local artists, rather than pulling in from outside, which is really wonderful,” Bourgeois adds. “We have a robust art scene, but what we might be lacking are the collectors. I don’t know that people from outside of Atlanta are really coming in to see what great art we have, and to see the value and the collectibility of the art in the Southeast in general.”
The kickoff of the Atlanta Art Fair presents an opportunity for the city’s dealers to not only expose their artists to out-of-town clients and national media, but a chance to connect with local wealthy collectors who may pass over Atlanta galleries amid their travels to hubs like New York, Los Angeles, Miami and elsewhere to buy art.
“Atlanta does have this kind of secret mega-collector hub, and even those people don’t want to buy from Atlanta sometimes. It’s interesting, because now I’m seeing them here at the fair,” says Anna S.K. Masten, a co-owner of Wolfgang Gallery a space founded in 2022 that showcases emerging artists. “I’m really pleasantly surprised to see people who normally tend to overlook our market, even though they live here, actually come out to support.”
As far as whether those major collectors came ready to spend money during the VIP preview, Masten is a realist. “Maybe they need two or three more drinks,” she says. “It’s a little bit of a testing period.”
A half-dozen participating galleries reported sales right out of the gate. Mitochondria Gallery, a Houston space focused on emerging artists from Africa and the African diaspora, sold three marble busts by the Nigerian sculptor Ejiro Fenegal, two paintings by the Rwanda-based artist Izare Antoine and a work by Nigerian artist Odeyemi Oluwaseun. The Nashville-based gallery ZieherSmith sold an unspecified number of works from Caroline Allison Book of Hours series (2024) for prices ranging from $2,500 to $5,000. And Melissa Morgan Fine Art a gallery based in Palm Desert, California, sold multiple works by Guy Diehl and a mirrored, light sculpture by Anthony James for $340,000.
A magnetic presence at the fair is Fay Gold, the most established art dealer in Atlanta. At 92 years old, she was enthusiastically greeting clients and friends at her stand on Thursday and weaving between sculptures by the artist Marlene Rose—the gallery sold one of the artist’s works, Sun (2024), for $8,500 during the preview. Gold is one of the only dealers in Atlanta who has taken part in major international art fairs like Art Basel in Switzerland, and compared finally having a fair in the city to “magical realism”.
“It’s so amazing to have this kind of passion and spirit and support in Atlanta,” Gold says. “The fair puts us on the map. No one has ever taken us seriously, because everyone in Atlanta wanted what grandma had, they wanted that sense of history and society. That kind of Civil War mentality has been put to bed.”
One of the newest galleries at the fair is Hawkins Headquarters, founded by sculptor Alexander Hawkins last year in a small exhibition space he renovated in a former motel and strip club along an Atlanta highway.
“One of the really important things about having a fair in Atlanta, with a lot of Atlanta galleries and this being their first fair, is it kind of paves a path for them to do fairs outside of the city, once they've had experience,” Hawkins says. “You learn a lot about set up, the insurance, bringing work, all of that. It really sets a roadmap for galleries here to start doing fairs in other places.”
Atlanta locals say that the lack of media attention and collector support has pushed some artists and other cultural workers to leave the city for places like New York and Los Angeles to further their careers.
“I feel a deep sense of responsibility to present artists I love and adore, and to also show people that aren't from here what we have to offer,” Lauren Jackson Harris, an independent curator from Atlanta who served as a guest curator for the fair, says during a champagne toast at the VIP opening. She adds that it feels surreal to be walking around Pullman Yards in Atlanta and seeing local colleagues after years of running into each other at art fairs in Los Angeles, New York and Miami.
Even amid the sense of growth in Atlanta’s art and cultural scenes, Harris implored VIP guests drinking champagne to consider how the state of Georgia consistently ranks among the lowest states in the country when it comes to state appropriations for arts funding.
“We have a lot of work to do to activate the fair and to pay it forward and to invest,” Harris says. “We need to continue to not only party with the artists, but also buy their work, support and fund the organisations, and really make sure our arts ecosystem thrives.”