ajc.com 2008 Holiday Guide

There were many visually engaging and illuminating art exhibits in metro Atlanta this year. My short list of 2007's highlights are those with value added.

• "Cinema Remixed and Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970." Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. Kudos to director Andrea Barnwell Brownlee for this groundbreaking survey. Bringing together generations, powerful imagery and diverse themes, it was an eye-opener even for those in the know. And there's more: Part II opens Jan. 24.

Joey Ivansco/Staff (ENLARGE)

A detail of Lorenzo Ghiberti's magnificent baptistery doors; their loan was a major coup for the High Museum.

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• "Cecilia Beaux: American Figure Painter." High Museum of Art. Former curator Sylvia Yount's nuanced reappraisal of Beaux's career and its cultural context — particularly the status of female artists at the turn of the century — has rescued the artist from undeserved obscurity.

• "Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti's Renaissance Masterpiece." High Museum of Art. The fruit of the museum's entrepreneurial spirit, this gem of an exhibit offered an up-close-and-personal look at a masterpiece of Western art never before shown in the United States and never to travel again.

• "Unbuilt Atlanta." Eyedrum. The artists and architects in this show came up with some very creative solutions to urban problems. Fun, engaging, provocative and well-designed (by guest curator Karen Tauches).

• "Wandern." Solomon Projects. Nancy Solomon turned her gallery into a salon for a month, offering a whole range of ideas across arts and culture via a free series of visiting speakers and film screenings.

In the realm of new buildings, the same value-added criterion yields these two:

• Target at Atlantic Station. This Target is not only different from the typical big-box store — a hulking windowless bunker looming over acres of parking — it's actually good. The sleek horizontal box floats 18 feet above the ground so that cars can park underneath. Stacked stone adds texture and warmth. The long window across the front, the largest Target has ever built, creates a sense of transparency, not to mention a great skyline view from inside.

Project architect Thom Lasley and his team also created the park in front. Like the red bollards playing off the Target logo, the modern seating, equipped with red and yellow sunshades, add a bit of whimsy. The best big-box in Atlanta.

• The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir. Talk about a labor of love. Thousands of volunteers came together to build this new Hindu temple, the largest of its kind in the country. Constructed of marble, limestone and sandstone, Lilburn's new landmark rises — literally and figuratively — like a heavenly white apparition above the banality of a nearby strip mall.

The ornate carvings, both abstract patterns and relief sculptures, cover and dematerialize every surface. Intricate as an Oriental rug, the patterning on columns and on the ceiling of the sanctuary work in concert with the white marble walls and floors to create a space that transports the visitor, believer or not, into another realm.

And finally, a few shout-outs to some local institutions that made 2007 a better year for us all:

• Lumiere Gallery, which opened this year, for broadening the scope of photography exhibits in town.

• Whitespace, the most alternative of Atlanta's commercial galleries, for showcasing interesting artists and letting them experiment.

• The Atlanta History Center, for its moving display of the Martin Luther King Jr. papers.