New York City Art Fair Highlights
Last week – pre-total-pandemic-pandemonium – New York City's art world came together for one of the busiest times of year and Anni Irish was on the ground to share her favorites from around town.
Armory Week was kicked off by the Art Dealer's Association (ADAA) held at the historic Park Avenue Armory and featured over 70 galleries from across the country. This was followed by the younger and hipper fair that has been making a name for itself over the last 9 years, Spring Break. This year it took place in the former Ralph Lauren Polo offices in midtown Manhattan just a stone's throw away from the fashionable 5th Avenue.
Continuing down to TriBeCa was the Independent Art Fair and Volta NY, which was back this year after having to unexpectedly cancel in 2019. The week was rounded out by the most anticipated, and largest fair of them all presented at Pier 90 and 94; The Armory Show. Here are my highlights from each fair.
Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA)
Fresh off a complete floor remodel of the historic Park Avenue Armory's space, ADAA opened the week with a strong showing of over 70 galleries. The fair was dominated by painting and photography, however, there were some installations and sculptural-based works with galleries from across the country.
P.P.O.W
One of the most engaging and interesting works from the fair came from the P.P.O.W's artist Ramiro Gomez. Coming off of the splash they made at Frieze NY last year, Gomez was back at it at ADAA with an installation that took over the entire booth as a solo exhibit. In the installation, Gomez worked with Armory staff to find specific wall panels that he then incorporated into the piece. The wall panels remained untreated and Gomez utilized them to illustrate what happens during a typical install of an exhibit. Gomez created life-sized portraits of many of the art handlers and installers that work behind the scenes to help showcase the people’s view at art fairs, and in many ways help to make the art world run.
This installation is part of an ongoing series entitled Magazine Series and is making a larger comment on the labor in general and make unseen work more visible. It is also referencing the larger undocumented workforce in America today and class dynamics. Gomez's work has also been informed by his own upbringing due to the fact that his parents were undocumented Mexican immigrants, and when he worked as a live-in nanny while living in Hollywood. This series sheds light on many of the workers who are often not acknowledged within this workforce who helped to maintain the status quo. The installation was both amusing, funny, heavy-hitting and eye-opening and was one of the most culturally and socially engaging works within ADAA this year.
Sicardi Ayers Bacino
The Houston-based gallery Sicardi Ayers Bacino offered an exciting one-person show of the Venezuelan artist Merceds Pardo. Pardo who played a vital role in the Informalist Movement, was also greatly informed by abstraction and geometric imagery. In this solo exhibit at ADAA, Pardo's work is seen in a new light and is helping to introduce her work to a larger audience. The canvases are lush with color many utilizing a royal blue background that gives way to abstract shapes that stack and separate from one another. There is a layering that Pardo is able to achieve with the way she works paint across the canvas and paper that is eventually smoothed out but becomes almost 3-D in the process. Pardo, although more widely known in South America, is starting to become more recognized by a global audience.
Independent Art Fair
Founded by Elizabeth Dee in 2010, the show has come a long way over the past 10 years. This year featured over 60 galleries from around the globe. Given the structure of their selection process – galleries are invited to participate rather than soliciting proposals – the result is a different sense of collectivity and curation.
This year's version offered a more reserved and refined presentation and featured a mix of both contemporary living artists and older artists who up until this point weren't as well known to a mainstream audience. Overall the work was very strong and featured a wide range of sculpture, painting, video, and even performance-based works.
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery
Nicelle Beauchene's booth featured the work of Lithuanian artist Daiga Grantina whose work is currently on view at the New Museum; and it was a welcomed sight on the first floor of the fair. The smaller sculptural assemblages are reminiscent of the artist's overall style, but in this modest size, they allow the viewer to really appreciate all aspects of their materiality and form. They resemble archaeological findings and their sculptural dimensionality provide a view from all angles, allowing an appreciation of how her materials; resin, foam, metal, wood all interact with one another. Inspired by plant life such as Lichen, these works are both complex and whimsical.
Andrew Edlin Gallery
Andrew Edlin's booth featured a group show of various artists including the Wisconsin-based Eugene Von Bruenchenhein. Deemed as an “outsider artist,” Von Bruenchenhein created the majority of his work during the middle of the last century through the 1980s. He left behind a treasure trove of drawings, sculptures, photographs, and writings. The ballpoint pen drawings conjure up futuristic mockups for sculptures or dwellings that could be rendered into 3-D versions. They are meticulous, mesmerizing and leap from the paper and frame they are confined within. Von Bruenchenhein's work is also the subject of a solo show currently up at their main gallery in the Lower East Side and should not be missed.
Karla Knight 33 Spaceships for Another Planet via Andrew Edlin Gallery Instagram
Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, Untitled Courtesy of Andrew Edlin Gallery
Paulina Peavy, Untitled via Andrew Edlin Gallery Instagram
Spring Break
Spring Break has traditionally taken more risks than other fairs. It has been seamed as a rule-breaker and in its early iterations was held in a school located in the Lower East Side. In the nearly decade later that has followed, the fair has expanded with a West Coast edition and is attracting artists from all over.
Every year the show has a specific theme and this year it was excess and with it's adopted midtown location for the duration of the time just steps away from luxury stores like Louis Vuitton and Prada, it was perfect. This year's show featured over 100 exhibitors and was one of its most ambitious to date.
Julie Henson/The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art
Julie Henson's installation, “A Dramatic Pause,” curated by The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art's was a delight to come across in a sea of other works. The San Francisco-based artist's work is humorous, complex and is a nod to her Southern Mega-Church upbringing as well as drag and ballroom and pageant culture. The disco ball metallic floor gives way to several oversized bright pink wigs that have been perfectly flipped out that are suspended from the ceiling. Another suspended sculpture just to the left of the wigs featured over 100 pairs of baby blue satin gloves that have been sewn together to create a larger sculptural piece and offset by a deep midnight blue curtain that is strewn along the back wall of the installation. This gives way to a life-size cutout of a headless Dolly Parton donned in blue. Her cleavage is visible and it invites the viewer to interact with the installation in another way by stepping onto the stage and playing the role of Dolly.
The installation is ambitious, thoughtful and is also exploring the line between viewer and audience and where it becomes blurred particularly within the realm of performance. Henson was one of the breakout artists at this year's Spring Break and is someone to be on the lookout for.
Julie Henson “A Dramatic Pause. Image Credit: Anni Irish
Miriam Carothers
Miriam Carothers’ paintings are a mashup reality television meets self-help inspirational quotes on Instagram with a dash of cynicism. Curated by Luke Bauman, Carothers' booth at Spring Break seems like a peek into her psyche – with gold and white leopard wallpaper offset by a plush, gaudy wall to wall carpeting viewers get a chance to view her wacky and smart takes on pop culture. Inspired by Instagram celebrity influencer culture and Hollywood, Carothers weaves funny pointed juxtaposed paintings while making larger comments on the world. Many paintings feature reality television stars from the Real Housewives series, 80s Hair Bands mixed with the religious children's cartoon Veggie Tales, Pamela Anderson and more.
Volta
After a year hiatus, Volta was back this year in a new location. They have always done their best to showcase artists from around the world who are both emerging and mid-career and this year's fair was no different. And this fair tends to have a more global focus. There were over 50 galleries this year and it offered a more intimate and manageable experience compared to the other fairs that can often be overwhelming.
Roya Khadjavi Projects
One of the strongest showings this year was from the NYC-based project Roya Khadjavi which featured works focused on contemporary Iranian art and attempted to give viewers a snapshot into this world while also looking at the larger cultural Diaspora. It showcased the art of four artists––Aida Izadpanah, the Safarani Sisters, Shirin Hossein Zand, and Arman. This group show had a wide range of pieces such as video projects shown on paintings, the well-known photography of Arman, and pop-art inspired sculptures. The art featured here was visceral and was helping to situate Iran and the Iranian experience more centrally.
Armory Show
The Armory show is a big draw for many in the art world. Founded in 1994, it has become the feature event in a week of fairs that have popped up in the decades that followed. It is also one of the largest fairs in the United States and this year featured over 180 galleries from around the world. 2020 had a more female-forward approach both in terms of the fair's direction as well as within its Platform, Focus, and Perspectives sections, which featured the curatorial work of Jamillah James, Anne Ellegood, and Nora Burnett Abrams. This year's iteration did not disappoint and works spanned the full spectrum of mediums from painting, drawing, prints, sculpture and more.
Night Gallery
With so much coverage in the news regarding the post #MeToo movement and just weeks after Harvey Weinstein's trial, Cynthia Daignault’s piece titled Delia's Gone, named after the Johnny Cash song felt extremely timely. The work featured 20 portrait style drawings constructed in a monochromatic style and considers the larger history of violence towards powerful women. Some of the portraits include Hillary Clinton, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Maylala Usef, and Meghan Markle among others. This series is stylistically in step with what Daignault has created over the years but is taken to another level with the difficult subject matter.
