The Armory Show 2024: Do Not Miss These Artists
The art world’s annual west side story is underway, as hundreds of artists, thousands of people and millions of dollars coalesce around The Armory Show, the season’s essential global exhibition of contemporary art, creative marketing and historical homage.
Until Sunday evening, the sprawling Javits Center will be the art world’s epicenter as The Armory Show, New York’s largest, celebrates its 30th anniversary, its second year as a part of the Frieze art empire and its first under the leadership of new director Kyla McMillan.
Some elite market-makers, including Gagosian, David Zwirner, and Hauser & Wirth opted to skip the Armory in favor of Frieze Seoul, but that mattered little to the thousands who showed up to ogle, critique and maybe even purchase some of the art brought to the west side by 235 galleries from 35 countries.
Once known for its focus on American galleries and artists, especially those from its hometown, this year’s edition continues a path toward globalization that is being followed by other big U.S. events, including Frieze and Art Basel Miami. While there are household names here and there – Alex Katz, Keith Haring, Yashitomo Nara, to name a few – the fair largely holds to its mission of promoting new talent.
The show’s opening comes at a time of deep uncertainty about the state of the art world. In the first half of this year, sales at the big auction houses declined precipitously, galleries of every size saw similar downturns, some closed, lots of people lost their jobs, lots of artists saw their income plummet.
Still, the mood among artists, gallerists and attendees at the show remained upbeat. The Armory Show has historically been an opportunity for artists to make a splash in the heart of the U.S. art market, by far the world’s biggest. Many undoubtedly will succeed. Here are five who should.
Jimmy Wright Jimmy Wright ink draws from Max's Kansas City, 1974, Fierman Gallery, NYC, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago, photo by Lisa Freeman
The curated Focus section's curatorial theme of art-historical reverberations and echoes in the present is ably leveraged by downtown doyen Jimmy Wright. Wright offers up work that dates from his formative years as a newly minted MFA surfing the treacherous yet thrilling landscape of the streets and clubs of downtown New York City during the 1970s, a time when the city was near to financial and cultural bankruptcy.
Brought to the Armory through a collaboration of New York’s Fierman Gallery and Corbett vs. Dempsey of Chicago, Wright’s exhibition includes a brilliant set of four ink drawings on paper napkins of the crowd at iconic lower Park Avenue nightclub Max’s Kansas City, circa 1974. A period piece that speaks to the pre-AIDS era’s care-free indifference, the work captures the expressions and body language of a flirty menagerie of olden-days hipsters.
Another piece, the oil on canvas Silver Sky, 1975-76, is similarly imbued with the naive enthusiasm of the era and of its creator, then a 30-year-old from rural Kentucky finding his way in Gotham. Essentially a painting within a painting, Silver Sky references an uncertain future via a wide black border on the bottom and left and gains impressionist gravity through the sparkling and colorful lighted windows in the city’s skyscrapers.
Paige K. B., Blade Study, Lower East Side, NYC, photo by Lisa Freeman
If you feel like harmonizing with some Very Beautiful Images With Quite A Bit Of Concerning Text Laid Over The Artwork, don’t miss Blade Study’s installation by New York-based artist Paige K. B. that unites the virtual and actual to explore the interplay between human perception and a disparate collection of objects, readymade and created by the artist.
The installation includes paintings and sculpture elements – including a miniature toilet surrounded by a flock of origami cranes, a pair of red sneakers, a shelf with a partially burned candle atop a saucer, and panels depicting a used iPhone case – arranged against a rear accent wall painted in peach fuzz, the Pantone color of year.
The gallery notes that the artist proposes “a critical relation between source and reproduction, text and picture, past and present, craft and technology, sign and imagination.”
Blade Study, an upstart gallery that outlasted the pandemic to become a beacon of avant garde audacity in one of the most energized corners of New York’s Lower East Side, is here thanks to its ascension to the Gramercy International Prize, which awards a young, bold New York gallery a complimentary booth at the fair.
The exhibit, built around a kinetic sculpture that responds to the presence of the audience, includes a series of interactive sculptures and digital projections that challenge the boundaries of visual and sensory experiences. As viewers move through the space, sensors embedded within the sculpture trigger a series of light and sound sequences, creating a dynamic and ever-changing experience.
“We are generally interested in how digital technology and networked culture are the substrate and context of many people's lives. This is one way our programming echoes the founders of the Armory,” said Ian Glover, one of Blade Study’s directors.
Masami Teraoka, Catherine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, photo by Lisa Freeman
Channeling 19th-century Japanese woodblock art master Hiroshige, Masami Teraoka brings a collection of works that fuse the traditional Japanese woodblock prints, or ukiyo-e, with modern day themes like consumer product abuse to commit expressions of nostalgia, worry and generational fatigue.
Juxtaposing the aesthetics of Edo-period Japan with modern-day subjects, Teraoka finds space to comment on contemporary societal issues. One example is McDonald's Hamburgers Invading Japan/Tattooed Woman and Geisha III, a 2018 woodcut in 43 colors from 37 cherry wood blocks on Kizuki Hosho paper. In it a blonde, chopsticks-wielding woman is tonguing a noodle as a more traditionally quaffed woman appears at the window offering a hamburger.
The show also includes work from Teraoka’a acclaimed AIDS Series, Tampon Series, and New York Restaurant Series, all rendered with Teraoka’s meticulous attention to detail and use of vibrant color.
Represented by San Francisco’s Catherine Clark Gallery, Teraoka's pieces often feature intricate narratives that challenge viewers to reflect on issues such as consumerism, sexuality, and globalism. His work serves as a bridge between East and West, past and present, creating a dialogue that is both visually engaging and intellectually stimulating.
Esaí Alfredo, Spinello Projects, Miami, photo by Lisa Freeman
A suite of new oil paintings by Esaí Alfredo, a multidisciplinary artist from Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, employs surreal, otherworldly landscapes to give agency to a series of figures encountering critical moments of decision-making amid doubt.
Alfredo's work often explores themes of identity, culture, and the human condition and the pieces brought to The Armory via Spinello Projects of Miami bear that out. They are characterized by a cockeyed approach to realism, that sets his characters amid surreal backgrounds, supported by a keen attention to detail and an dexterous employment of light and shadow.
In El Camiono Carmesi/The Crimson Path, a 2024 oil on canvas, Alfredo situates his subject, undoubtedly himself, amid a blue-hewed landscape of giant tombstone rock formations, like the buttes of Arizona’s Monument Vvalley. The subject seems puzzled on the way forward, but is he oblivious to the lone crimson line stretching from his past into the far distant future?
“While each series of images I have created tells a unique story, light pollution and the detachment of humankind from the cosmos is always a vital element in my stories,” he said in an artist’s statement.
Kandy G Lopez, ACA Gallery, Chelsea, NYC, photo by Lisa Freeman
Kandy G Lopez is a Florida-based artist known for her dynamic exploration of identity, social justice, and the human experience through mixed media and portraiture. Her art often delves into themes of resilience and empowerment, particularly focusing on marginalized communities. Her work is brought to the Armory by ACA Gallery ofr Chelsea.
Jade I, 2023, a monumental work rendered in yarn and spray paint on hook mesh, is typical. At eight feet tall, the subject appears from a low-angle, giving her at once a sense of nearness and distance. Her you-talking-to-me expression and relaxed body language give the portrait emotional heft, but it is the eyes that communicate the overarching feel of calm, composure and blasé confidence.
Her technique commonly starts with the eyes, Lopez wrote in an essay for the American Craft Council earlier this year. “Eyelash line first, then iris, then pupil, then whites….Each eye is different, even right to left. The eyes create the connection with the viewer,” she wrote.
An Afro-Caribbean visual artist who was born in New Jersey, ACA says Lopez’s work is “created out of the necessity to learn something new about her people and culture. Lopez is interested in developing a nostalgic dialogue between the artwork and the viewer.” WM
The Armory Show is open Friday and Saturday, Sept 6-7, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 8, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the Javitz Center, 429 11th Ave.
