Cover Story: Vision quest

The smell of cheap merlot and drying Kilz perfumes the air as the Atlanta arts scene barrels into full swing this fall.

Architecture is a leitmotif of exhibitions this year, starting with always reliable Atlanta painter Scott Ingram’s fugue on the domestic Case Study House 2003, which is featured at Sandler Hudson Gallery Sept. 12-Oct. 18. At the Inman Park alternative space ArtSpot, an interesting combo of four artists (Robert Bubp, Matt Haffner, J. Ivcevich and Jeff Demetriou) who treat urban architecture in their work will graze close to home in DeKalb Avenue Oct. 4-Oct. 31.

The most promising museum show of the year, A Matter of Time: Edward Hopper From the Whitney Museum of American Art at the High Aug. 30-Oct. 26, also pivots on architecture. The show features a number of paintings focused on depopulated landscapes and coincides with the public unveiling of previously hidden architectural features in the museum’s Richard Meier design. In a rapidly expanding arts scene, also look for the debut this fall of the Murphy Avenue Elevation Gallery, which opens with a mixed media survey of artists from the West Coast called Vegas Baby! Sept. 20-Nov. 22.

Once you have the building, you need the bodies to fill it. Thus, emerging local talent Anya Liftig brings Baby Invasion to Eyedrum’s small gallery Oct. 4-25, which promises in a tease that sounds like Roger Corman’s latest exploitation film, “zillions of handmade plastic babies swarm over gallery”! Bodies of a more political order will be the focus of Lingua Physical: Notes from the Body Challenged, a provocative photography show at the Arts for All Gallery Sept. 30-Nov. 11 devoted to the self-image of disabled women.

The Atlanta College of Art Gallery will feature a scintillating roster of emerging national talent in an Altoids-sponsored touring exhibition and lecture series including the New Yorker’s Amy Cutler (Oct. 2, 7 p.m.), creator of fetching, provocative drawings. A promising dispatch from the outside world will also arrive at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, where viewers can tour the history of French innovation in film art from Jean-Luc Godard and Chris Marker to Pierre Huyghe in New Waves: Selections from the Centre Georges Pompidou’s New Media Collection Sept. 6-Oct. 25.

-- Felicia Feaster