It was getting down to the wire, only a few days before the 2024 Armory Show launched at the Javits Center in NYC, and I had a potential scheduling conflict. But everything worked out, and I was able to get a ticket and attend this massive art fair for the 13th time in the past 15 years. “Massive” is an understatement, perhaps it’s better to describe trying to see this show in its entirety as an endurance test. With 235 art galleries coming from 35 different countries, and each gallery having their own display booth, it takes a serious time commitment to take it all in. Granted, I may be a bit obsessive in wanting to see it all, but I thoroughly enjoyed my five hours spent wandering from booth to booth.
It’s reassuring – as a painter – to see that painting still dominates the art market, considering the scale of the market overview that this fair provides. When you think about how much art is on display at this fair – let’s just say for the sake of argument that each of the 235 booths had approximately 20 art works on display – that comes to 4,700 art works by this rough estimate. According to some reports I’ve seen (especially this one), it seems like there were lots of sales. For big amounts. 5 figures, 6 figures. I overheard two women having this discussion about an unidentified (to me) art work: woman #1 – “where are you going to put it?” woman #2 – “on the wall!” woman #1 – “which house?”
But perhaps I should just leave the market analysis alone – it gets frustrating at times to think about the art world gatekeepers and who gets to show at the top galleries and how works are sold for tens of thousands of dollars that may never truly have any resale value and so forth and so on. I think about these things, but the bottom line as to why I love going to the Armory Show every year is really just the ability to see so much great art all in one place and to leave with my own artistic inspiration. We’ve got Tschabalala Self’s project titled “Bodega Run,” pictured above, with objects – such as 7Up cans and cans of La Morena – and characters that one might find at a corner bodega in NYC. Below we’ve got “Zodiac Rooster,” by Ai Weiwei, which might strike you as a pointillist painting from afar, only to get up close and see that it’s made entirely of Lego bricks.
This painting below is by Ndidi Emefiele, on view at Rosenfeld’s booth. I’ve seen her work at previous Armory Shows, and love her style … look at the way that the liquid in the glass and the cat behind it are reflected … amazing work!
I realize I’m barely scratching the surface here with this post, but I’ll wrap up for now with this “Reclining Nude” by one of my favorite painters, George Condo. It’s always great to see his work in person, I spent some time enjoying this cubist-inspired work at Archeus/Post-Modern.
Check back later for more coverage of the 2024 Armory Show!