Top 10 art shows

1. One Planet Under a Groove: Hip-Hop and Contemporary Art, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art

This sharp, funky traveling show featured a multimedia look at the impact of hip-hop culture on art.

2. Paris in the Age of Impressionism: Masterworks from the Musée d’Orsay, The High Museum of Art

From Eiffel Tower souvenirs to nouveau art vases, this expansive show looked beyond the obvious oil paintings to give a real taste of the time.

3. Shed Space, various locations Curator Joey Orr’s annual backyard exhibition series that hooked up artists and neighborhood shed owners for installations that featured performance art, video, animation and more.

4.The Turn of the Screw, Gallery 100, Atlanta College of Art In a war that has been largely reduced to “are ya fer or agin it,” recent ACA graduate photographer Hope Hilton added a powerful, human element to that divisive issue by treating her brother’s imminent service in Iraq.

5.Common Objects: Artists Transforming the Ordinary, City Gallery East This imaginatively curated show from local artist Melissa Messina demonstrated how artists have crafted witty and incisive work out of everyday things from Scotch tape to bread twist ties.

6.Lick the Window, Atlanta College of Art Gallery Merry French conceptual art pranksters Buy-Sellf offered some much needed silliness in their anti-corporate, anti-Hollywood work.

7.Use Your Illusion I, Dos Pestaneos Studio The fine line between critique and prank can be an exquisite one to tread, and the teeny-weeny Atlanta art collective Dos Pestaneos implored viewers not to believe their eyes in one of the year’s most well-conceived shows.

8.Birthday Party: Paintings by Mia Merlin, Callanwolde Fine Arts Center Gallery This solo painting show dealing with emotionally fraught family photographs was memorable for its nostalgia-drenched technique.

9. J. Ivcevich, Michael Scoggins, Club Rio, Scott Lawrence’‘, Saltworks Gallery In this subtle but well-matched show, three strong area artists and one saucy art collective offered work that in one way or the other, seemed to be about America.

10.Summer Solos: James Barsness, David Isenhour, Jeff Sonhouse and Secrets and Lies: Work From Yun Bai and Ohm Phanphiroj, The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center

Summer isn’t ordinarily a time for rocking art, but this eclectic hodgepodge of regional artists working in pop culture genres from cartoons to porn offered more mind fucks than one could hope for from a contemporary art show.’‘