Insider tip
Travelers may have noticed Radcliffe Bailey’s piece “Saints” hanging at Concourse E at Harsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Public art can get a bad rap. Often derided as “plop” art, it’s dropped onto corporate plazas like culture airlifted in from the heavens, and can show little relevance to the city it inhabits. While Atlanta has its share of plop art, the city also proves rich in inspiring, memorable works. Here are 10 pieces that can make you proud to live in this diverse, creative, ever-changing metropolis.
This story originally appeared in the May/June 2016 edition of Living Intown Magazine.
1. “Hero,” Loss Prevention
The mural HERO, honoring U.S. Congressman and Civil Rights Leader John Lewis, is shown on the west side of the Renaissance Walk at the corner of Jesse Hill Jr. Drive N.E., and Auburn Avenue Friday morning in Atlanta, Ga., August 24, 2012. Atlanta-based artist Sean Schwab worked on the mural for 8 days using a 65-foot lift to paint the wall. JASON GETZ / JGETZ@AJC.COM
Every day, Congressman John Lewis’s legacy in Atlanta is proclaimed by this powerful mural created by the husband-and-wife team of Sean Schwab and Maggie White of Loss Prevention. “We were big fans of the public art movement,” White says, “but we also wanted to see more art that people personally relate to and that honors a community’s past.” Both humble and grand, like the man himself, the seven-story-tall mural in Sweet Auburn affirms the meaning of heroism as self-sacrifice in order to achieve a greater good. Schwab says Lewis told him it “was one of the best depictions he had seen and felt it really captured his spirit.”
Location: corner of Auburn Avenue and Jesse Hill Jr. Drive
2. Noguchi Playscape, Isamu Noguchi
The Noguchi playscape in Piedmont Park is a one-of-a-kind work of public art by the late Japanese-American artist, sculptor and furniture designer. The city along with Eddie Granderson, who shepherded the restoration has spent 10 long years restoring the world's only Noguchi-designed playground, mending the damage of time, vandals and vagrants. It's to be rededicated on Monday, June 1. John Spink/jspink@ajc.com
Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and completed in 1976, this cast concrete and steel Piedmont Park playground designed by renowned modernist Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi is the only playground the artist designed, fulfilling his desire to make art a part of lived, daily experience. With its bold primary colors and geometric shapes, the work celebrates the vibrancy of a child’s world in a minimalist style.
Location: Piedmont Avenue, near the 12th Street park entrance
3. “Rolling Hills of Georgia,” R. A. Miller
Rolling Hills of Georgia by R.A. Miller at Atlanta Folk Art Park is found at the corner of Ralph McGill Blvd and Courtland Street above the I 75/85 corridor. (Jenni Girtman/ Atlanta Event Photography)
When I first moved to Atlanta, a common ritual was to visit folk artist R. A. Miller’s Rabbittown home to buy his unique, whimsical animal and human figures painted on metal. As time passed, it became a thrill to possess work from an artist featured in the High Museum’s collection. Luckily, you don’t have to own a piece or visit the High to enjoy Miller’s creativity: It’s there to be seen any day at Folk Art Park. The celebration of the South’s vibrant folk art scene was created as part of the Corporation for Olympic Development in Atlanta in advance of the 1996 Olympics.
Location: Ralph McGill Boulevard at Courtland Street
4. “Rockspinner,” Zachary Coffin
Children from St. Mountain enjoy spinning '
, ' by Zachary Coffin (CQ), of Atlanta. Zachary Coffin's interactive installations feature masses of rock that test the limits of physics, gravity and viewers' nerves. A giant stone monolith mounted on a special frame utilizes extremely low-friction bearings, enabling even a child to spin the massive 5+ ton boulder with a touch of a hand.
In a high-profile location at the intersection of Peachtree and 10th Street, this enormous boulder sourced from the Nevada mountains sits on a small metal support like a chubby ballerina and invites passersby to give it a spin. “Placing a 24,000-pound spinning boulder in this location took a lot of guts,” Coffin says of Midtown Alliance’s decision to bring the work to the neighborhood. Coffin says he was at first taken aback by the giant Santa hat and earmuffs the Midtown Alliance created to adorn the sculpture during the holidays, but now he gets it: “To be honest, the work does resemble a giant Mr. Potato Head.”
Location: 10th Street and Peachtree
Insider tip
Enjoy “Rockspinner” while you can: Its three-year lease runs out in November.
5. "Blue and White," Dale Chihuly
The Atlanta Botanical Garden is home to a
and
sculpture.
One of the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s most successful exhibits, a 2004 exhibition by Seattle glass artist Dale Chihuly, brought two permanent works to the Garden: the Nepenthes Chandelier in the Visitor Center and the Parterre Fountain’s “Blue and White,” a joyous explosion of glass in watery hues. The sculpture recently underwent a thorough cleaning in anticipation of the April 30 opening of a second Chihuly exhibition of 21 works. The organization will salute its ongoing relationship with Chihuly by purchasing six of his drawings, to be displayed in the Garden’s new on-site restaurant, Linton’s in the Garden, also opening April 30.
Location: Parterre Fountain, Atlanta Botanical Garden, 1345 Piedmont Ave.
6. “Wisdom,” Harold Rittenberry and Robert Clements
This towering steel sculpture was created in 1998 for the East Point Library by self-taught Athens folk artist Harold Rittenberry and UGA art professor Robert Clements, who also designed Folk Art Park. Poetically simple in its execution and message, the sculpture of a mother carrying a small child on her back manages to be both relatable and meaningful. Like Radcliffe Bailey’s “From the Cabinet” (see below), the work was created as part of Fulton County’s Art in Public Places resolution, which allocates 1% of the cost of acquisition, renovation or construction of any Fulton County building to the creation of a public artwork. Celebrating the neighborhood as a transportation center, “Wisdom” reflects the local community while avoiding some of the saccharine tendencies of other public art works.
Location: East Point Library, 2757 Main St., East Point
7. “Nobody” by Axel Void
This mural entitled Nobody was painted by Axel Void in Castleberry HIll on Peters Street. (Jenni Girtman/ Atlanta Event Photography)
In 2010 Monica Campanas began a grassroots nonprofit effort — Living Walls, the City Speaks — to bring notable street artists to Atlanta to create outdoor murals around the city. One of my favorites is “Nobody,” Miami-born, Berlin-based artist Axel Void’s (né Alejandro Hugo Dorda Mevs) heartbreaking, beautifully rendered work in sepia tones on a Castleberry Hill wall. Painted in the style of an elementary school portrait, the work features a boy in thick glasses, one lens covered with paper to correct a vision defect or hide a disability. “Nobody” provides a reminder of how easy it is to dismiss and forget the helpless, the young and the vulnerable among us — a message given an added poignancy in its placement close to a homeless mission.
Location: Peters Street, Castleberry Hill
8. “Homage to the King,” Xavier Medina-Campeny
Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. at the intersection of Boulevard & Freedom Parkway. (WILLIAM BERRY/AJC staff)
Standing at the crest of Boulevard and Freedom Parkway, this steel work depicts Martin Luther King Jr.’s profile, arm raised in a gesture of welcome or oratory punctuation. The Cultural Legacy Initiative commissioned the piece to bring important public works to Atlanta by way of Barcelona in a cultural exchange of art in advance of the 1996 Summer Olympics. The piece, in prominence and effect, feels like a worthy monument to the centrality of King in the birthplace of the civil rights movement.
Location: Boulevard and Freedom Parkway
9. “Young Americans,” Sheila Pree Bright
Atlanta fine-art photographer
Pree Bright wheat-pasted epic-sized portraits, including "Aaron, " from the "
" series on the David T. Howard School in the Historic Old Fourth Ward. The installation is part of Atlanta Celebrates Photography 2013. CONTRIBUTED BY
PREE BRIGHT.
For several years, Atlanta-based artist Sheila Pree Bright has photographed millennials with the American flag, asking them to interact with the symbol to express their feelings about being an American. Placed on the David T. Howard school brick exterior in 2013, Pree Bright’s “Young Americans” murals bring her series to an institution that educated many civil rights activists. The mural is incredibly powerful in its own right: As Atlanta grows and moves rapidly into the future, and the mantle passes from one generation to the next, such work serves as reminders of the importance of the past and the bright potential of the city.
Location: Old Fourth Ward, block bounded by Irwin, Houston, Randolph and Howell streets.
10. “From the Cabinet,” Radcliffe Bailey
It’s hard to think of an Atlanta-based artist with star power to rival Radcliffe Bailey. As an artist who has often plumbed African-American history, Bailey’s first outdoor public work will fittingly debut at the newly expanded Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture. “The significance of working on the Auburn Avenue Research Library is rooted in the history of this location and its connection to African-American history and the people of Atlanta,” Bailey says. Created as part of Fulton County’s Art in Public Places resolution, the 4,000-pound steel sculpture includes metal silhouettes containing references to Africa, music, books and sailing ships. The piece is scheduled to debut on May 22.
Location: Auburn Avenue Research Library, 101 Auburn Ave.
