Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport houses the Southeast's biggest and busiest art galleries

“Saints” by Radcliffe Bailey, commissioned by the airport in 1996. (Courtesy of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.)

What’s the biggest, busiest gallery in the Southeast? Of course, it’s Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

The giant travel hub complex extends over an area nearly twice the size of Decatur. Even with the runways, that’s still a lot of walls, and they’re in front of the eyes of hundreds of thousands of visitors every day — numbers most galleries could only dream of.

Coordinating the curation, acquisition and placement of art at Hartsfield-Jackson is an enormous task, one handled in part by Benjamin Austin, senior art program manager in the airport’s planning and development division, and Art Program Manager Jess Bernhart.