Atlanta is a city of diverse opportunity, and the weekend of September 12th showcases that well, offering two very different cultural and entertainment options: Make the most of Southern culture and attend the first-annual Atlanta BBQ Festival and Competition, or take a trip to the Far East with the High’s Indian Film Festival.
The Atlanta BBQ Festival, which takes place at Turner Field from 10 AM to 6 PM on September 12th, features professional and backyard barbecuers at the grill, great beer on tap, and Southern Rock, Blues, Motown and Gospel bands. A kids area helps contain (and entertain) pint-sized barbecue tasters. Admission to the festival is free, but much of the food is not. However, the true value of the festival comes from listening to BBQing tales and competitor’s advice as your work your way through their kiosks.
September 11th-13th, the High Museum offers an entirely different way to spend your Saturday: throughout the weekend, the High will show several Bollywood films in partnership with India’s National Film Development Corporation. The Treasures from India series features films hand-selected by Linda Dubler, the High’s Curator of Media Arts. The Festival offers viewers six dramas by award-winning director Satyajit Ray as well as acclaimed comedies, documentaries and dramas, including Bioscope and Meeting a Milestone, by outstanding artists. Each film’s general admission ticket is $7. Students, seniors and Museum members receive a $1 discount.
General, Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC). Terracotta, H 195 cm. On loan from the Museum of the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Emperor Qin Shihuang, Shaanxi Province, China. Photography © The Trustees of The British Museum with the kind permission of the Shaanxi Cultural Heritage Promotion Center. Photo: John Williams and Saul Peckham.
This November, pieces of China’s most important archaeological discovery, the First Emperor, Qin Shihuangdi’s Terracotta Soldiers, will arrive at the High Museum of Art. The figures, which date back to 200 B.C., once stood guard among thousands of others in the emperor’s memorial tomb, and offer Museum-goers an intimate look inside the world of ancient China.
In addition to the nine Terracotta warriors on view at the High, the museum has also secured several other figures found in the 1974 excavation, including a bare-chested strongman and a Terracotta chariot horse. Each illuminates the delicate aspects of imperial China, and promotes a deeper understanding of this ancient culture. “The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army,” is one of the largest installations of Terracotta figures ever to come to the United States. It will be at the High from November 2008 through April 2009.
Although Paris may not be on your list of destinations this year, the High Museum’s Louvre Atlanta project can bring that city’s cultural mores to you. Take advantage of the Louvre’s most recent installment of fine art at the High, an exhibit that explores the evolution of the masterpiece, showing 91 works of art that span the course of 4,000 years.
The exhibit, which will be in Atlanta from October 2008 through September 2009, features exceptional, world-renowned art and sculpture, including Bayre’s Lion Crushing a Serpent, as well as a lesson in connoisseurship via masterworks placed beside their convincing-looking copies.
