"Do you know Goat Farm?" Kelly Freeman, Director of the Atlanta Art Fair, asks me. She calls while on a walk, and I shake my head before remembering she can't see me. The Atlanta Art Fair is preparing for its third year, drawing attention to the city's distinct, rapidly expanding artistic ecosystem. "Part of what makes Atlanta so incredible is that it's consistently growing and developing and expanding based on its creative roots," Freeman explains.
The Goat Farm Arts Center, named for the goats the previous owner brought in to eat overgrown kudzu on the property, now operates as a creative-industrial arts complex and cultural center, with artist studios, performance spaces, and, most recently, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, taking residence. Earlier this summer, Goat Farm collaborated with Georgia Tech Arts to produce LOOP, transforming a 1940s-era industrial property into a contemporary arts programming space. "I bring these things up as examples of the change I continue to see in Atlanta," Freeman says. "It's so cool to be even a small part of that."
The Atlanta Art Fair, which began in 2024, will host its third edition the first weekend of October, featuring more than 70 galleries from the American South and around the globe. Returning Atlanta galleries include Jackson Fine Art, Johnson Lowe Gallery, Whitespace, and Spalding Nix Fine Art, joined by exhibitors from across the U.S. and abroad, including San Francisco's Jonathan Carver Moore, New York's Tanya Weddemire Gallery, Johannesburg's Melrose Gallery, and Barcelona's PIGMENT GALLERY. First-time exhibitors include Atlanta's TILA Studios and aKAZ!ATL, New York's Claire Oliver Gallery, and Los Angeles' Art Melanated.
