Decade in Review - THEN AND NOW: The state of the arts

THEN: Back in 2000, folks (not folks like us, unfortunately) had money to drop on art, and they were mostly laying it down in a wealth of posh galleries scattered throughout Buckhead. Fay Gold Gallery, the Lowe Gallery, and Galerie Timothy Tew were just a few of the names feeding a clamoring bunch of collectors. While the birth of Woody Cornwell and Marshall Avett’s rag-tag indie upstart Eyedrum over on downtown’s Trinity Street and Grant Park’s indie-craft artery Young Blood were signs of the things to come, the big picture was focused on the big spenders.
 
NOW: Back alley graffiti tours. A proliferation of neighborhood art walks. High(er)-brow artists on low-brow gallery walls, and vice versa. Well, color us happy — Atlanta art went and got accessible! How else can you explain street artist Dosa Kim on view at Alan Avery, or Alex Kvares’ recent show at BeepBeep Gallery — a convergence of the gritty and divine that wouldn’t have existed a decade ago, notes Atlantan Senior Editor Felicia Feaster, who was a CL critic back in ’00. These days, art is more about the collective than the collector. The emergence of DIY, grassroots groups over the past decade such as Art House Co-op, WonderRoot, and MINT Gallery, among others, has given rise to a less commercial, more community-based visual arts scene.

PROGNOSIS: Somehow, we’ve learned to share. Our mothers would be so proud.