The Armory Show announces the public art installations of Armory Off Site, the second edition of the art fair’s outdoor art program that brings large-scale artworks to New York City’s parks and public spaces. Each work will be on view during the fair, which takes place at the Javits Center this September 9-11. Several Armory Off-Site installations will remain on view until late 2022.
The featured artists and locations are: Juan Capistran (CURRO) in Bella Abzug Park; Tomokazu Matsuyama (Kavi Gupta) in Flatiron Plaza; Adam Parker Smith (The Hole) in Ruth Wittenberg Triangle; and a special digital presentation by Carolina Caycedo (Instituto de Vision) in Times Square as part of Times Square Arts’ Midnight Moment program. These four Armory Off-Site works are exhibited in tandem with the fair’s five sculptures at the US Open, presented as part of The Armory Show’s Armory
Off-Site at the US Open program, featuring Gerald Chukwuma (Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery), Jose Davila (Sean Kelly), Luzene Hill (K Art), Myles Nurse (Half Gallery), and Carolyn Salas (Mrs.).
Nicole Berry, Executive Director of The Armory Show, says: “We are honored to work with our esteemed exhibitors and their extraordinary artists to provide dynamic public art installations in five distinct locations in New York City. Each installation selected for our second annual Armory Off-Site program offers a unique perspective, introducing the public to works that inspire and engage. We are also grateful for our partnership with the New York City organizations who offer their spaces as they share the fair’s commitment to introducing a broader audience to contemporary art.”
Bella Abzug Park ~ Juan Capistran’s text-based sculpture Sundown (2021-2022), presented by CURRO, is rooted in the context of “sun downtowns” and redlining across the United States. Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice aform of racial segregation by excluding non-whites. The term came from signs posted that “colored people” had to leave town by sundown. This work takes the form of a quaint, large-scale greeting sign that welcomes viewers with a picturesque sunset landscape painted within the letters forming the words “get out.”
Presented in partnership with NYC Parks & Hudson Yards Hell’s Kitchen Alliance
Flatiron Plaza ~ Tomokazu Matsuyama’s polished steel work Dancer (2022), presented by Kavi Gupta Gallery, contemplates the total experience of his paintings and the logical relationships of the formal elements within. Laser-cut patterns in polished steel shimmer in and out of sight as viewers move around the pieces, with the broad flat facets being nearly paper-thin amid the weighty “outlines” defining their boundaries. The mirror polish is more than just “fetish finish” — it is a means of activating the surfaces. The piece’s own patterns reflect across each other, complicating their reading, and almost serving as an optical metaphor for Matsuyama’s vision of cultural exchange. The effect extends beyond the piece as its surfaces take on the colors of its environment. Presented in partnership with the Flatiron NoMad Partnership and Department of Transportation’s Art Program (DOT Art)
Ruth Wittenberg Triangle ~ Adam Parker Smith’s new sculpture Ganymede with Jupiter’s Eagle (2022), presented by The Hole, is at first glance both instinctively recognizable and bizarrely different. The artist-working with a team of master carvers, a seven-axis reductive robot, and the digital research teams at museums like the Uffizi-has rendered some of the greatest hits of Hellenic sculpture in 30 modelling programs, before compressing each of them into a compact cube, painstakingly chiseled out of a Carrara marble block. The ancient stone draws a material through-line between the sculpture Smith has chosen for his antic homage-Apollo of Belvedere, Bernini’sDavid, and others-the better to defamiliarize these paradigmatic works as they appear before the viewer, radically reshaped. Presented in partnership with the Village Alliance and Department of Transportation’s Art Program (DOT Art)
Times Square ~ Carolina Caycedo’s Patron Mono: Rios Libres, Pueblos Vivas (2022) will be on view each night in September in Times Square as part of the organization’s Midnight Moment series. Presented with Instituto de Vision, the work portrays the lower Cauca River canyon located near Antioquia, Colombia-a region currently impacted by the Hidroituango dam crisis. The muleteers, fishermen, and artisanal miners of the region refer to the Cauca River as Patron Mono (Blonde Boss), because of its yellow color and the gold found in its waters and sands. Each night, flowing water and glittering gold will move in kaleidoscopic configurations across the iconic billboards of Times Square.
Presented in partnership with Times Square Arts
Armory Off Site at the US Open ~ In June of this year, The Armory Show announced a partnership with the US Open that would extend the Armory Off-Site program to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center August 23-September 11, 2022, coinciding with the fair. Building on the USTA’s “Be Open” social impact campaign launched in 2020, the collaboration marks the first time in theUS Open’s history that contemporary galleries will present sculptural works at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Highlighting works by underrepresented artists from a wide range of backgrounds, the partnership is grounded in the USTA and The Armory Show’s shared vision for creativity, inspiration, and equity.