The Armory Shows Kicks Off Its 25th Year With Expanded Edition While Part of Volta Gets a Plan B

The Armory Show began with a VIP Preview on March 6 and is open to the public through March 10, 2019, with 198 galleries from 33 countries, bringing together an unparalleled presentation of modern and contemporary art in central Manhattan. Staged at Piers 90 and 94, the 2019 edition features a diverse breadth of compelling artworks—from new discoveries to historical masterpieces.

(NOTE: About 60 Armory Show exhibitors were moved to Pier 90 due to unsafe structural conditions at Pier 92. As a result, VOLTA, a smaller sister fair to be held at Pier 90, was canceled. Nearly 30 Volta exhibitors will instead show at David Zwirner Gallery, 525 West 19th Street location and at 521 West 21st Street, in a generous, collaborative save that is dubbed the ‘Plan B’ pop-up art fair. Several more Volta dealers were added to Art on Paper, Pier 36.)

Marking the fair’s 25th Anniversary and reflecting its heritage in New York, The Armory Show includes several exhibitors who participated in its earliest editions at the Gramercy Park Hotel, including 303 Gallery (New York), Tanya Bonakdar Gallery (New York, Los Angeles), Galerie Krinzinger (Vienna), and Zeno X Gallery (Antwerp).

Building on a strong contingent of international exhibitors, the 2019 edition features 63 new and first-time exhibitors, including A Gentil Carioca (Rio de Janeiro), carlier | gebauer (Berlin), Selma Feriani Gallery (Sidi Bou Said), Stephen Friedman Gallery (London), Antoine Levi (Paris), David Nolan Gallery (New York), Öktem&Aykut (Istanbul), ShanghART Gallery, (Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore), Sorry We’re Closed (Brussels), and Tif Sigfrids (Athens, GA).

Throughout the fair, 88 exhibitors will present solo- or dual-artist booths, reflecting a strong focus on indepth presentations and curatorial approaches. A number of artists will make their New York debut at the fair, while several exhibitors have chosen to restage important historical works. In addition to solo- and dual-artist presentations, many exhibitors will devote their booths to presentations by leading contemporary women artists across several generations.

Galleries (Pier 94), the core section of The Armory Show, features outstanding 20th- and 21st-century artworks in a range of media, presented by 111 leading international galleries. Insights (Pier 90), comprising 32 established galleries, emphasizes solo-, dual-artist, and thematic presentations of artworks made before the year 2000. Highlights will include canonical figures in modern and post-war art, in addition to overlooked discoveries from the 20th century. Presents (Pier 94) is a platform for galleries no more than ten years old to showcase emerging talents through solo- and dual-artist presentations. Featuring 26 galleries, Presents offers an exciting array of artworks by some of today’s most promising emerging talents.

Focus (Pier 90), is organized by Lauren Haynes, Curator of Contemporary Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Featuring 28 galleries, the presentations in this year’s Focus explore identity through figuration of both real and imagined forms. 

Platform (Piers 90 and 94), stages large-scale artworks, installations, and commissions curated this year by Sally Tallant, the recently appointed Executive Director of the Queens Museum. For its third edition, this year’s Platform section will take the 1939 New York World’s Fair as a point of departure. In 1939, on the brink of World War II, the New York World’s Fair looked to a hopeful future in the face of rising geopolitical uncertainty. Worlds of Tomorrow features works by Andreas Angelidakis, Siah Armajani, Tania Candiani, Ryan Gander, Iris Häussler, Xaviera Simmons, Jessica Stockholder, Super Taus, and Pascale Marthine Tayou, who will present a monumental new work in the Town Square on Pier 94.

25th Anniversary Section, The Gramercy International Prize
To mark the fair’s 25th Anniversary, The Armory Show has created the Gramercy International Prize, a new, yearly initiative that supports the advancement of young and pioneering New York galleries who have not previously participated in The Armory Show. Ramiken has been selected as the recipient of the inaugural Gramercy International Prize and will exhibit a dual-artist presentation of works by Darja Bajagić and Andra Ursuţa.

Pat Hearn Gallery and American Fine Arts, Co. Tribute, co-presented by Galerie Nagel Draxler and The Armory Show
The Armory Show celebrates the legacies of two of its co-founders, Pat Hearn and Colin de Land, with a special presentation of works by Mark Dion, Andrea Fraser, and Renée Green. As an homage to Hearn and de Land’s championing of neo-conceptualism, this commemorative presentation of Dion’s Lemonade Stand, Fraser’s Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk (1989), May I Help You (1991) and Green’s The Pigskin Library (1990), will pay tribute to their visionary gallery programs. Situated next to the Gramercy International Prize-winning gallery on Pier 94, the booth provides historical context for fair visitors, celebrating the mission of their galleries, as well as highlighting the influence Hearn and de Land had on the New York and international art scenes.

Armory Live Talks
Armory Live celebrates the fair’s anniversary with four days of dedicated talks featuring internationally renowned artists, curators, collectors, and art practitioners. This year Armory Live takes the fair’s 25th Anniversary as a point of departure to consider the significant developments in production, experience, criticism, and patronage in the arts over the last quarter-century. 

Leo Villareal’s Sky Ceiling
The Armory Show, in partnership with Pace Gallery, will present Star Ceiling (2019), a 75-foot-long, immersive LED work by New York-based light artist Leo Villareal, installed in the passageway connecting Pier 94 to Pier 92, where VIP and public lounges are housed. Star Ceiling, which was created especially for The Armory Show, will be the largest digital-media work presented at the fair in its 25-year history.

Curatorial Leadership Summit
The second annual Curatorial Leadership Summit, chaired by Dan Byers, Director, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, will assemble over 70 prominent curators for a daylong program of discussions that will consider the role of history in present curatorial work and artistic practice. Byers will lead the conversation with Johanna Burton, Director, Wexner Center for the Arts; Connie Butler, Chief Curator, Hammer Museum; Valerie Cassel Oliver, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Meg Onli, Assistant Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; and Catherine Morris, Sackler Senior Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum.

New Prizes
The Armory Show 2019 will present two new prizes from partners Pommery Champagne and Étant donnés. The Pommery Prize will recognize an exceptional presentation within the Platform section of the fair with a $20,000 prize. Étant donnés Contemporary Art will award the Étant donnés Prize of $10,000 to one living artist of French nationality, or France-based, who is featured at The Armory Show. For the third consecutive year, Athena will present the annual Presents Booth Prize, a $10,000 prize that recognizes an outstanding and innovative presentation within the Presents section of the fair.