Intending to build on the success of last year's "Drawing Inside the Perimeter" exhibition, which showcased a deep pool of Atlanta talent, the High Museum of Art has received a $50,000 grant to buy more drawings by local artists for its permanent collection.
The money is from the Atlanta-based Antinori Foundation, whose principals were impressed by the “Drawing” show and offered the grant to extend the project. The exhibit recently made The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s best-of-2013 list of exhibits and received strong notices from the city’s arts Web sites.
High Modern and Contemporary Art Curator Michael Rooks said he believes the new acquisitions "can be a catalyst for contemporary art in Atlanta for years to come." He added that the pieces he will bring into the permanent collection should result in a second exhibit in about two years.
Shortly after starting at the High in 2010, the curator learned about a $50,000 bequest to the museum from art dealer and patron Judith Alexander to acquire work by Georgia artists.
Rooks arrived with a reputation for digging into the arts communities where he’d worked (including at the Contemporary Museum Honolulu and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago). Assembling the collection with independent curator (and Alexander friend) Marianne Lambert afforded him the opportunity to make connections quickly with Atlanta artists and gallery owners.
The curator narrowed collecting pieces from the metro area and to the medium of drawing, relatively affordable compared with paintings and sculptures. More than 50 pieces (most stretching the conventional notion of drawing well beyond basic pencil and paper) were acquired mainly from Atlanta galleries.
“Drawing” came off as a revelation to many observers because it emphasized emerging artists, roughly 60 percent of whom were showing at a major museum for the first time. It also appeared to confirm a growing interest at the High in better representing the local scene. The museum has invested heavily since the 1996 Olympics in importing works from high-profile institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Louvre.
Rooks said the next round of collecting also will emphasize drawing, for reasons beyond price point.
“I think it’s one aspect of collecting that’s really exciting no matter where you are,” he said. “Because drawings are so personal, you really start to get to know the artist and get inside their head and to understand where they’re coming from, whether it’s craft-based or idea-based. I love being able to … literally introduce them to our audience.”
Rooks used the first round of acquisitions to bring into the collection emerging artists and others from the metro area whom the High had not included previously, and he avoided acquiring works by those already well represented in the museum’s holdings. For the new round, he said he hopes to buy works by several well-established artists to represent their most recent decade or so of art-making.
The $50,000 from the Antinori Foundation will be supplemented by $5,000 from the Judith Alexander Foundation and $8,000 raised during last fall’s exhibit-closing “Monster Drawing Rally” at which 75 Atlanta artists sold works created on the spot.
