Report by Brad Balfour
With Armory Week kicking off now, you can trek from the Seaport District to Hudson Yards and Madison Avenue to visit some of the leading art galleries as well as well a lot of under-the-radar newcomers and indie artists. They’re all gathered together for week of Fall art fairs which attracts collectors from all over the world to Manhattan. Alongside The Armory Show, the flagship fair, are satellite art fairs across the city that attract galleries and arts venues of all types to showcase their best and brightest. Here are short description of these fairs.
The Armory Show
September 9–11
Javits Center
429 11th Avenue, Midtown West
thearmoryshow.com
Over 100 years ago, the original Armory Show took place shocking audiences with samples of the avant grade art scene emerging in Europe. Marcel Duchamp’s painting “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2” (1912) was among those works prompting both praise and condemnation. At the end of the last century, four New York art dealers revived the fair, propelling the explosion of art fairs extending throughout the country and the world.
In its new home at the Javits Center, the fair has settled into an expansive and accessible space with 240 exhibitors from over 30 countries. This year’s Presents section is devoted to galleries under 10-years-old, while two curated sections — Focus and Platform — highlight Latinx and Latin American art. Organized by Carla Acevedo-Yates, the first takes an intersectional approach to environmentalism “focusing on personal and political climates as they interact with race and gender”. The second, curated by Tobias Ostrander, reimagines public monuments through large-scale installations and site-specific works. Many of the projects on view in Platform offer a fresh take on the concept of historical memory and all that has been omitted — in particular, Latin American and Latinx women artists.
This year, a new Armory Spotlight program features The Kitchen, an essential New York-based multidisciplinary performance and experimental art space that’s too often overlooked as a critical avant-grade ground breaker. Rarely seen material from its archive, dating back to its founding days as an artist collective in 1971 will be presented.
A series of special events will also accompany the fair, including the fifth annual Curatorial Leadership Summit, chaired by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Latin American Art curator Mari Carmen Ramírez. The summit hosts international curators for a discussion about the differences and affinities between Latin American and Latinx art. The 2022 Armory Live program will take place in the Armory Live Theater beginning in the afternoon of September 9th with a conversation featuring artist Daniel Joseph Martinez, moderated by Ramírez and Gilbert Vicario. On September 10th and 11the, the fair will host three conversations each day, featuring esteemed panelists such as Cecilia Alemani, Iván Argote, Anne Pasternak, Ebony G. Patterson, Eva Respini, Magnus Resch, Susanna V. Temkin, and more.
Spring Break Art Show
September 7–12
625 Madison Avenue (10th & 11th fls) Midtown East
springbreakartshow.com
Of any of the fairs, expected the unexpected with this show, which also marks its 10-year anniversary. Themed around Naked Lunch, the 11th New York City version invites “new portraiture, complex realism, updates on the artist gaze, a ‘Renaissance’ approach to multimedia, poetics and problems with objectification, and many happy Hellenistic returns.” It attracts not only a vibrant community of artists, but a creative crowd of friends, and oddballs living the artistic life, exhibiting themselves and works well outside of the mainstream.
Art on Paper
September 8–11
Pier 36
299 South Street
Lower East Side, Manhattan
thepaperfair.com
Art on Paper has pushed the limits of this versatile medium every year, showcasing not just wall-hanging art but also sculpture and even performance. A hundred galleries exhibit modern and contemporary paper-based work at this year’s New York City edition. Keep an eye out for Bang Geul Han’s series of tapestries, woven from legal documents on topics including abortion and immigration, and Stacey Lee Webber’s hand- stitched paper currency works.
Independent 20th Century
September 8–11
Cipriani South Street
10 South Street, Financial District
independenthq.com
Independent’s exhibitor list is sprinkled with galleries not exclusively focused on the emerging-to-mid-career category that is usually its bread and butter. This fall, the fair is launching “Independent 20th Century,” dedicated to work made between the years 1900 and 2000. That chapter of art history has been far from overlooked, but many of its artists were forgotten or left out of the narrative, and the fair hopes to introduce lesser-known modern names.
Clio Art Fair
September 8–11
Five Five Zero
550 West 29th Street
Chelsea
clioartfair.com
Clio Art Fair bills itself as an independently minded “anti-fair.” The biannual and bicoastal show was created to give exposure to independent international artists who are not exclusively represented by any New York or Los Angeles gallery. This year’s edition will feature a special section curated by Asya Rotella that investigates the relationship between human beings and screens, titled “Maybe I am Your Mother.”