Fashion
At 30, The Armory Show Asks, Can Art Fairs Still be Relevant?
Among its 235 exhibitors from 30 countries, our critic finds these standout booths — and hails three local curators who have brought some sections exciting new life.
The Armory Show was founded 30 years ago by a handful of art dealers who treated the art fair format as a playful, ironic, even experimental affair. Held at the Gramercy Hotel in Manhattan, artworks were displayed on the beds, and viewers wandered from room to room taking in the cheeky display.
We’re a long, long way from that setup. Now The Armory Show has been swallowed up by a new owner, the multinational Frieze, and the art world calendar is so crowded with fairs that they run simultaneously: Frieze Seoul is underway at the exact moment as the Armory.
This leads to the questions: What do art fairs offer at this moment? Have they passed their due date? Can they assert their relevance?
The current edition of the Armory has approximately 235 exhibitors from 30 countries but stresses its New York roots. Along with global appeal, it’s also trying to recruit new art collectors from cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, and it has hired some storied local curators to organize various sections.
Eugenie Tsai, formerly of the Brooklyn Museum, has curated a stellar group of monumental works along the fair’s median axis, in the “Platform” section, and titled it “Collective Memory.” This group includes well-known artists like Nari Ward, Sanford Biggers, Karon Davis and Nicholas Galanin.
Robyn Farrell, senior curator at The Kitchen, has organized the “Focus” section, which pays homage to the “experimental spirit” of the inaugural 1994 fair, but also the very first “Armory Show” in 1913 (called the International Exhibition of Modern Art), where avant-garde European art shocked and awed American audiences.
