Til the Lights Go Out Curated by Scott Ingram

ON VIEW: November 15 - December 19

OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, November 15, 7 – 10 PM

 

Atlanta, Georgia – HATHAWAY is excited to present Til the Lights Go Out, a group exhibition curated by Scott
Ingram. The exhibition will feature site-specific wall drawings, paintings, and installation from a number of
prominent artists based in Atlanta and elsewhere. This will be the last exhibition in Hathaway’s original space,
and the artwork will be torn down with the building. Til the Lights Go Out will open in tandem with our first
exhibition at our new space in Suite 200, Down in the Valley, a solo exhibition of new work by Tori Tinsley.
Participating artists: Lloyd Benjamin, Paul Stephen Benjamin, Krista Clark, Drew Conrad, William Downs, Craig
Drennen, Sarah Emerson, Sarah Hobbs, Lonnie Holley, Howard’s Athens, Scott Ingram, Wihro Kim, Michi Meko,
Kirstin Mitchel l, Esteban Patino, Joseph Peragine, Amy Pleasant, Jason Scholtz, Pete Schulte, and Tori Tinsley
Til the Lights Go Out.
Since Atlanta was awarded the 1996 Olympics, the city has been consumed with change. Labeled “the city too busy to
hate” we have learned to adjust to the constant shifting of our community. From Google Maps the city often looks like a game of Tetris as buildings come down and empty lots are filled. When I moved to Atlanta in 1995 what is now known as the Westside was an un-monikered expanse of empty low-slung buildings, mostly warehouse spaces consuming the landscape and occasionally a more significant structure such as the building at Howell Mill and 14th, formerly the U-Haul building, stretching vertically above its brick peers. It is now a trendy Jamestown property with everything from hip eateries to Lululemon, Room and Board and of course the ever-brilliant Knoll. The U-Haul building was home to many Atlanta College of Art students and housed art studios and DIY galleries for years. It was a no man’s land and the well-established Northside Tavern did not seem out of place. This area in
general was the place to go for DIY galleries, art shows and rave parties. About 10 year ago galleries like GET THIS! and
Saltworks joined Marilyn Kiang, Sandler Hudson, and Emily Amy among others on the Westside creating a vibrant arts
district, one of many over the years. It was another short chapter in Atlanta’s art history as the neighborhood changed
and the arts were pushed out to find new neighborhoods.
But as we well know, this is not a new phenomenon for the arts. This is the way it works. In most cities, development
follows the artists. The arts have a way of showing a community its own potential. Think back to Chassie Post in
Virginia Highlands, Solomon Projects, and Mcintosh Gallery in Midtown. No one ever thought that Memorial would be
a place that people wanted to go before there was the Mattress Factory, or Castleberry Hill before the artists and
galleries made that the hot spot for a time.
So creating/curating an exhibition in an art gallery that will be destroyed just days after the gallery closes shouldn’t be
unexpected. It is hard to find an artist in Atlanta that has not been affected by these shifts in our landscape. The
difference this time is that we saw it coming and could actually create an opportunity for ourselves. This was a unique
opportunity to create without the limitations of a future functioning space. This is about painting directly on the walls,
floors, and ceiling, creating environments, messes, and leaving the clean up to a bulldozer.
As a curatorial project, I see this as a collaborative effort amongst all the parties involved – artists, curator, gallerist,
and developer. I have a fascination with creating art in structures that are being raised. In 2015 I used a backhoe to
pierce a home in Ormewood Park with a 47 ft. I-beam just weeks before the architect took down the house. In this
project, I am offering a collection of artists the opportunity to create a large-scale work of art that will remain intact
until the demolition of the building. We will document the destruction of the works from inside and outside the
building during the demolition of the structure. In this way, the developer becomes a part of the work. Every artist in
this show understood the importance of the destruction of their work as a metaphor for the trajectory of artist spaces.
Creating the work was about community, the feelings of ownership of a space, the recognition that like every
exhibition the experience is fleeting, but this time so is the space. It seems a fitting end to another gallery space in
Atlanta. The artists will go on, the gallery will go on, and Atlanta will go on turning old into new.
-Scott Ingram