Art Party returns after 10-year absence

Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, 535 Means Street NW, Atlanta. 404-688-1970

A beloved Atlanta tradition returns after more than a 10-year hiatus when the Art Party kicks off on Saturday, Oct. 19, at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.

ACAC, formerly called Nexus Contemporary Art Center, began throwing the fund-raising event in the late 1980s, and it quickly became something of a phenomenon, a landmark annual event on Atlanta’s art calendar, a time for artists and supporters to gather and enjoy food and drink along with visual art, music and performances.

“Everybody loved them, myself included,” said Stacie Lindner, a frequent attendee of the original Art Party events, which continued until 2002. Lindner is now managing director of the Contemporary Art Center and is hoping her organization can resurrect the event beyond 2013.

“We’re trying to bring back that magic,” she said.

Although the original event was a popular favorite, the often herculean effort of putting it on, as well as some bad luck with weather several years in a row and a difficult economy, made it no longer cost-effective. But the sustained popularity and name recognition of the Art Party made current staff at ACAC wonder if it was time to bring the event back, says Lindner.

The new Art Party, like its predecessors, will utilize the entire campus of ACAC, with art exhibitions indoors, bands and DJs outside, as well as tours through the on-campus artists’ studios. Entertainment for the evening includes the band Big Mike’s Kingsized Quartet, burlesque performers Dames Aflame, DJ Nonsense, DJ Kemit and DJ Salah Ananse.

“It’s an attempt to straddle a range of ages and approaches,” said artistic director Stuart Horodner.

Food and drink stations will serve tastes from Eclipse di Luna, Bad Dog Taqueria, Endive, Octane, the Lawrence, Top Flr, and Sky Lounge at the Glenn Hotel, all in keeping with the party’s theme this year, Nourish. Tickets are $50 per person in advance, $60 at the door, with ACAC member tickets for $25.

The celebration also coincides with the unveiling of new renovations at ACAC. Horodner points out that the organization just celebrated 40 years. “We started to get that 40-year-old gotta-get-back-in-the-gym feeling,” he said of the renovation process, which took place throughout the summer. “We think everyone will lose their minds because it looks substantively different.”

The center will unveil a somewhat different arrangement of the entire space, a new lecture room, new windows, new lighting system, new bathrooms, and a new HVAC system, all of which were sorely needed, Horodner said.

The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center building on Means Street off Marietta Street west of downtown was originally an auto repair factory west of Atlanta dating from the 1920s. The organization moved into the building 20 years ago. Although the organization renovated the building at that time, the equipment, like the dated lighting and the shedlike bathrooms, were ready for some sprucing up.

Particularly problematic was the former facility’s lack of a dedicated lecture and screening space. The center typically hosts at least one such event a week.

“We were having people come in and sit in the lobby area,” he said. “We’d have internationally known critics and curators, and we’d pull out chairs every time, and it was underneath this creaking HVAC unit.” The new lecture room will have seating for 99 people, and Horodner said it will provide the purposeful and welcoming atmosphere missing from the old space.

But it’s not just a party in spiffy new digs, said Horodner. The focus will be on the art. “We want it to be a fun thing, but we want it to have a kind of rigor that most parties don’t have,” he said. “That might sound odd, but we think the best events we’ve seen in Atlanta and elsewhere really capture the spirit of institutions they’re trying to help.”

Party-goers will have the chance to tour the on-campus artists’ studios, meet the artists, watch film and performances, and see the exhibitions. Art Party will include the opening of exhibitions by the Los Angeles-based collaborative team Fallen Fruit (David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young) and Atlanta-based artist Steven L. Anderson.

Atlanta Contemporary Art Center staffers said they’ll see how things go with the first “comeback” Art Party event — it will be the largest event the current staff and board have thrown. If all goes well, it’s likely to become an annual fall arts event once again.

“Everybody has a really positive nostalgia with the event,” Lindner said. “When you mention the words ‘Art Party’ to people that went or have heard of it, they’re so glad it’s coming back.”