It’s that time of year again — only 2023 marks our 50th Anniversary! Join us for our annual fundraiser — the night will transform the campus with programming, present you with special performances, and of course, Open Studios with our artists in the Studio Artist Program.
Sam Gilliam
Aug 24, 2023 - Dec 23, 2023
50th Anniversary Curation
In celebration of the organization’s 50th anniversary, Atlanta Contemporary (AC) announces two major solo exhibitions that showcase legacy artist, Sam Gilliam, in dialogue with emerging artist Hasani Sahlehe.
Atlanta Contemporary, today a celebrated non-collecting museum, began in 1973 as an artist-run space dedicated to contemporary art exhibitions. It has been Atlanta Contemporary’s mission for 50 years to be a platform for emerging and established artists to exhibit their work.
In honor of the 50th Anniversary, Atlanta Contemporary presents dynamic exhibitions that honor our past and look to the future.
Sam Gilliam
Curated by Veronica L. Hogan
Sam Gilliam, known for his groundbreaking contributions to the Color Field movement and his innovative approaches to abstraction, reshaped the boundaries of contemporary art throughout his illustrious career. His masterful fusion of color, form, and materiality has earned critical acclaim and an esteemed place in the canon of art history.
This exhibition brings together a curated selection of Gilliam’s artworks spanning various periods of his career. Including, but not limited to, works on paper, sculptural assemblages, and painted tapestry, AC’s audiences will have the rare opportunity to immerse themselves in the artist’s dynamic and visually stunning creations. Occupying the entirety of Gallery 3, this exhibition presents Gilliam’s artworks on a scale and with a breadth heretofore unseen in the region.
“With the utmost gratitude to artist Kevin Cole and the incredible regional collectors who have so willingly agreed to loan artworks from their collections, it is my pleasure to announce this remarkable exhibition,” says Veronica L. Hogan, director of Atlanta Contemporary. “Gilliam, who has exhibited in the Atlanta Contemporary galleries over the past 50 years, represents some of the best in abstraction. It is our privilege to showcase his artworks and place them in dialogue with emerging abstract painter, Hasani Sahlehe.”
Bios
Sam Gilliam
Sam Gilliam was one of the great innovators in postwar American painting. He emerged from the Washington, D.C. scene in the mid 1960s with works that elaborated upon and disrupted the ethos of Color School painting.
A series of formal breakthroughs would soon result in his canonical Drape paintings, which expanded upon the tenets of Abstract Expressionism in entirely new ways. Suspending stretcherless lengths of painted canvas from the walls or ceilings of exhibition spaces, Gilliam transformed his medium and the contexts in which it was viewed.
As an artist in the nation’s capital at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, this was not merely an aesthetic proposition; it was a way of defining art’s role in a society undergoing dramatic change. Gilliam pursued a pioneering course in which experimentation was the only constant. Inspired by the improvisatory ethos of jazz, his lyrical abstractions took on an increasing variety of forms, moods, and materials.
Location
Gallery 3
Curators
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