The Armory Show is pleased to announce over 225 leading international galleries exhibiting in the 2023 edition, representing more than 35 countries and showcasing over 800 artists. New York’s Art Fair will return for its third year at the Javits Center September 8-10, with a VIP Preview Day on September 7.
More than 140 exhibitors from the previous edition are returning to The Armory Show in 2023, including 303 Gallery (New York), Ben Brown Fine Arts (London, Hong Kong, Palm Beach), James Cohan (New York), Instituto de Visión (Bogotá, New York), Kasmin (New York), Sean Kelly (New York, Los Angeles), Simon Lee Gallery (London, Hong Kong), Josh Lilley (London), Victoria Miro (London, Venice), Almine Rech (New York, Paris, Brussels, London, Shanghai), Larkin Erdmann (Zurich), Nara Roesler (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, New York), Timothy Taylor (London, New York), Templon (Paris, Brussels, New York), and Zeno X Gallery (Antwerp).
Among the over 30 galleries returning to the fair after a hiatus are Galeria Raquel Arnaud (São Paulo), CLEARING (New York, Brussels, Los Angeles), Pilar Corrias (London), Carl Freedman Gallery (Margate), Jenkins Johnson Gallery (San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles), Galerie Lelong & Co. (New York, Paris), Lehmann Maupin (New York, Seoul, London, Palm Beach, Hong Kong), Pace Prints (New York), and Galeria Plan B (Berlin, Cluj).
There will be more than 40 exhibitors participating in The Armory Show for the first time, including 56 Henry (New York), acb Gallery (Budapest), Alexander Berggruen (New York), Dreamsong (Minneapolis), Galerie Christophe Gaillard (Paris, Brussels), Galerie Haas (Zurich), Nina Johnson (Miami), Ochi (Los Angeles, Sun Valley), and Galeria Marilia Razuk (São Paulo).
“The 2023 edition of The Armory Show welcomes to New York an impressive array of exhibitors from around the United States and the world,” says Executive Director Nicole Berry. “The scope of international participation among both gallerists and artists reflects the rich diversity of the city itself, a place where art professionals of all backgrounds have historically come to push boundaries and join in a global conversation. The early fall, with its change of season, is an evocative time to experience New York, and we are thrilled to offer The Armory Show’s expansive exhibitions and programming as an exciting centerpiece to that moment.”
EXHIBITOR HIGHLIGHTS
GALLERIES
Galleries is the core section of The Armory Show where leading international galleries present outstanding 20th and 21st-century artworks across a range of media, featuring a strong representation of New York exhibitors alongside other galleries from the United States, Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, and Australia.
Highlights include a solo presentation of Alexandre Lenoir by Almine Rech (New York, Paris, Brussels, London, Shanghai), which will open a second New York location this year in Tribeca; Pilar Corrias’ (London) presentation of new work by Indigenous artist Gisela McDaniel; Kaikai Kiki Gallery’s (Tokyo) presentation of new interpretations of Superflat art, a movement founded by the gallery’s owner, artist Takashi Murakami; a selection of Troy Makaza’s painted sculptural works presented by Timothy Taylor (London, New York): and Simon Lee Gallery’s (London, Hong Kong) dual-artist presentation of new works by Rachel Howard and Donna Huddleston.
SOLO
This section is dedicated to intimate single-artist presentations of emerging, established, and historic artists. Highlights include new paintings by New York-based artist Bridget Mullen, presented by Shulamit Nazarian (Los Angeles); first-time exhibitor Semiose’s (Paris) installation of new work by emerging Chinese painter Xie Lei; a presentation of work by José Leonilson by Almeida e Dale (São Paolo): acb Gallery’s (Budapest) solo booth of new paintings by Márton Nemes, who will represent Hungary at the 2024 Venice Biennale; hand-painted bronze and resin figures by South African artist Mary Sibande, presented by SMAC Gallery (Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Johannesburg); and Galerie Christophe Gaillard’s (Paris, Brussels) presentation of new oil paintings by Julien des Monstiers.
PRESENTS
Galleries under 10 years old comprise Presents, where exhibitors showcase recent works through solo- and dual-artist presentations. Highlights include Embajada’s (San Juan) presentation of new pictorial works by Puerto Rican painter Jean-Pierre Villafañe; Broadway’s (New York) presentation of new oil paintings by New York artist Victoria Roth; Sow & Tailor’s (Los Angeles) booth, designed to resemble the inside of a psychic storefront to accent their presentation of new paintings by Kayla Witt, which depict the imagery of psychic shops; and new paintings on hand-sewn canvases by Héloïse Chassepot, presented by Tara Downs (New York).
CURATED SECTIONS
Expanding on the thematically unified curatorial sections from the fair’s 2022 edition, The Armory Show 2023 brings together curators who will mount presentations that explore and examine historical narratives. Rather than taking a geographical focus, each curated section will consider artistic process, identity, and materiality to engage a representative view of art from around the world.
Focus, dedicated to solo – and dual-artist presentations, is curated by Candice Hopkins, Director and Chief Curator of Forge Project. The section will center on emerging and established voices that uncover hidden histories and little-known narratives.
Highlights include CLEARING’s (New York, Brussels, Los Angeles) presentation of hand-drawn textiles by Sara Flores, an artist of the Shipibo-Conibo nation, an Indigenous group living along the Ucayali River in the Peruvian Amazon; CANDICE MADEY (New York) and Nina Johnson’s (Miami) co-presentation of a new series of works by Patrick Dean Hubbell that abstract the iconography of Western painting; works by late Kwakwaka’wakw artist Beau Dick and Inuk artist Couzyn van Heuvelen, presented by Fazakas Gallery (Vancouver); and FIRMAN (New York) and Halsey McKay Gallery’s (East Hampton, New York) co-presentation of works by Matthew Kirk that reflect his relationship to his Navajo heritage.
Platform, curated by Eva Respini, Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs and Barbara Lee Chief Curator at the ICA/Boston, will feature large-scale installations and site-specific works, staged at the center of the fair. Platform will showcase the following projects: Hank Willis Thomas presented by Ben Brown Fine Arts (London, Hong Kong, Palm Beach); Yinka Shonibare and Xu Zhen presented by James Cohan (New York); Devan Shimoyama presented by De Buck Gallery (New York): Shahzia Sikander presented by Sean Kelly (New York, Los Angeles); Barthélémy Toguo presented by Galerie Lelong & Co. (New York, Paris); Teresita Fernandez presented by Lehmann Maupin (New York, Seoul, London, Palm Beach, Hong Kong); Jean Shin presented by Praise Shadows Art Gallery (Boston); and Woody De Othello and Pae White presented by Jessica Silverman (San Francisco).
“Are we living at the hinge of history, as has been theorized? The last few years have been a period of enormous instability and uncertainty. How do artists help us navigate this moment, reframe the past through the present, and account for history’s omissions and erasures? Platform 2023 brings together large-scale sculptures, installations, and site-specific works by artists who offer shifting and multiple perspectives where history has often provided a single perspective.
The Agora is the central artery of The Armory Show—the name recalls the ancient Greek practice of assembling in public. Encompassing a polyphony of approaches to installation and sculpture, the works assembled in the Agora are propositions for our time. Under the loose theme of Rewriting Histories, this presentation features artists expanding or challenging the historical canon, which is often preoccupied by inclusion and exclusion. The artists in Platform 2023 use history as material, imagine speculative futures, and employ a variety of material traditions as means of history-telling. Topics include the complex histories tied to colonialism, land, and power; the legacy of labor and migration movements in the 20th century; the combining of disparate accounts to underscore history’s subjectivity; and how materials carry their own cultural values and meanings. Although their materials and approaches vary, collectively, the artists in Platform 2023 are invested in world-building.”…….. Eva Respini
Taking a closer look at Platform 2023:
Hank Willis Thomas
Strike, 2021
Ben Brown Fine Arts (London, Hong Kong, Palm Beach)
Hank Willis Thomas reframes images that circulate widely in the world. Strike is based on the 1934 lithograph Strike Scene by Ukrainian American painter and printmaker Louis Lozowick, which depicts a charged confrontation between worker and authority. Thomas has isolated a single element from the print—one hand stopping another’s swing of a baton—transforming this disembodied gesture into a large-scale bronze. Through cropping and reframing, Strike prompts questions about the enactment of justice: Is justice the arm swinging the baton, or the force stopping it
Yinka Shonibare CBE, RA
Man Moving Up, 2022
James Cohan (New York)
In this mis-en-scène, Yinka Shonibare CBE, RA, collapses various material cultures to explore the complex, interwoven colonial histories of Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The single figure carrying his worldly possessions references the Great Migration—the exodus of six million Black Americans from the South to cities in the North, Midwest, and West from 1916 to 1970. The staircase’s ornate design is based on that found at Chatsworth House, a long-standing seat of aristocratic power in Britain. The figure wears 19th-century attire made in Shonibare’s signature Dutch wax fabric, underscoring the contradictions and complexities of cultural origins, while the Victorian cut of his costume alludes to the foundations of the sharecropping system and Jim Crow.
Teresita Fernández
Island Universe 2, 2023
Lehmann Maupin (New York, Seoul, London, Palm Beach, Hong Kong)
In Island Universe 2, Teresita Fernández combines the globe’s landmasses to create a continuous and meandering mass without borders. Evoking Pangea, the supercontinent found on earth 300 million years ago, Fernández visualizes the interconnected geological, cultural, and historical relationships of geographies and challenges the typical north-up = superior / south-down = inferior presentation found in most world maps. Made with charcoal, Island Universe 2 illustrates the artist’s interest in uncovering what she refers to as “stacked landscapes,” the conceptual framework that allows the work to reveal the often invisible, buried layers of historical violence embedded in land.
Jean Shin
Huddled Masses, 2020
Presented by Praise Shadows Art Gallery (Boston)
Jean Shin uses the detritus and discarded elements of our everyday lives to create her installations. Fashioned from obsolete cell phones, Huddled Masses is rough-hewn and irregular in shape, recalling the scholar’s rocks found in Zen gardens or traditional Chinese painting. Embedded like fossils in a ground of computer cables, the phones form an archive of 20 years of technological history, mapping our ever-growing digital footprint. The work invites us to reflect on e-waste’s impact on the environment and the planned obsolescence central to our consumer culture.
Devan Shimoyama
The Tower, 2023
De Buck Gallery (New York)
The Tower card is one of the most powerful in the tarot deck—it signals transition, turmoil, and unexpected change. Devan Shimoyama’s imposing Tower is extrapolated from the card design by Pamela Colman Smith, a London-born artist and children’s book illustrator whose legacy has been overlooked. The work appears charred yet is embellished with glitter, fabric flowers, and delicate slivers of silk ivy, suggesting rebirth or renewal, the possibility of cracks in the towering structure, or a makeshift memorial.
Woody De Othello
thought in mind, 2023
Jessica Silverman (San Francisco)
Invested in the ways that everyday objects carry their own cultural values and shape human experience, Woody De Othello creates the monumental from the mundane. Sculpted in bronze and standing at nearly seven feet tall, De Othello’s blown-up rotary telephone receiver and comb lean against one another, as if to support the weight of their shared domestic roles. Playful and surreal, these tools and technologies extend our physical forms to create tender moments of connection.
Xu Zhen®
Eternity – Standing Bodhisattva, Statue of Nike of Paionios, 2017–2022
James Cohan (New York)
Eternity – Standing Bodhisattva, Statue of Nike of Paionios is a composite of facsimiles of the Nike of Paionios (425–420 BC), one of the most famous statues of Western antiquity, and the Buddhist devotional sculpture of the bodhisattva, a being who selflessly guides others to salvation. In this playful fusion of classical sculptural forms, the artist explores the differences and similarities between cultures, while also carrying the archaeological weight of history with its attendant cultural and religious values.
Shahzia Sikander
NOW, 2023
Sean Kelly (New York, Los Angeles)
Shahzia Sikander’s multivalent bronze sculpture offers an abstracted and amorphous notion of the female body that refuses to be fixed, grounded, or stereotyped. The figure emerges out of a lotus plant, ubiquitous in many cultures as a symbol of humility, awakening, and clarity. Originally created as part of a public art collaboration between Madison Square Park Conservancy and the Courthouse of the Appellate Division, First Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, NOW is the first female figure to adorn one of the 10 plinths on the courthouse roof. Situated in a prominent position of power, the sculpture, whose title makes reference to the National Organization for Women, offers a reimagining of the feminine as an active agent, thinker, and participant as well as a witness to the patriarchal history of art and law.
Vaughn Spann
Monument, 2023
David Castillo (Miami)
Comprising three 10-by-10-foot paintings, Monument creates a complete environment that envelops the viewer in layers of textured paint and color. In an extension of Spann’s Marked Man series, the X featured in each canvas is serially repeated, alluding to the forms of modernist painting, minimalist sculpture, or pop art. Spann is interested in assigning new meaning to an extremely recognizable form. Depending on context, this symbol might be read as a reference to police brutality, a sign of negation, a designated location, a signature, or an allusion to Malcolm X.
Agnes Denes
The Debate, 1969/2023
Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects (New York) and Marc Selwyn Fine Art (Los Angeles)
The two seated skeletons featured in Agnes Denes’s The Debate aare engaged in conversation within the confines of a box whose mirror-coated interior panels create the illusion of infinite space. The glowing acrylic cube suggests a museum display of an archaeological relic excavated by a future species studying the extinct human race. In this expression of mortality and infinity, Denes captures the endless debate on the nature of humanity throughout history and into the future.
Barthélémy Toguo
Urban Requiem, 2015
Galerie Lelong & Co. (New York, Paris)
First commissioned for the 56th Venice Biennale, All the World’s Futures, curated by Okwui Enwezor, Barthélémy Toguo’s Urban Requiem comprises an arrangement of ladder-like sculptures featuring wooden busts. Hand-carved into their flat bases are slogans in multiple languages, sourced from protests and national movements, from #MeToo to #BlackLivesMatter. These works function as stamps, from which prints with the various slogans have been made. The stamps—or brandings—evoke the mechanisms of bureaucratic authority, such as border control as a mode of policing, and the flow of human bodies and capital that is tied to colonial and imperial histories.
Pae White
[Titles Forthcoming]
Jessica Silverman (San Francisco)
Working with a Jacquard loom, Pae White explores the tension between handmade and industrial processes in this suite of tapestries created for Platform 2023. The loom’s invention in the 19th century allowed for the efficient reproduction of textile patterns and reduced the human labor required for production. White works against the loom’s industrial function to create intricate, and individual, designs, incorporating motifs from the natural world. The artist says, “A Jacquard loom is a beast of an industrial machine. I love denying what it does, removing the repetition, and transforming its mindless speed into an intentional, thoughtful result.” White’s tapestries hang close to the ground, creating an intimate architecture to envelop and cocoon the viewer, transforming a historical technology to facilitate new encounters.
SUPPORTING NEW YORK’S CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
This fall. The Armory Show continues to embed itself in New York City’s cultural landscape through its wide network of Cultural Partners, Off-Site programming, and support for vital New York cultural institutions. Through prizes, partnerships, and programs, the fair forges deep connections within the art world and to the worlds of fashion, sports, and other forms of civic life.
Find a list of not-for-profit galleries 2023 Here.
GRAMERCY INTERNATIONAL PRIZE
The Gramercy International Prize–an homage to the fair’s original name, the Gramercy International Art Fair–awards a complimentary booth to a New York-based gallery that has never before participated in The Armory Show. The fifth annual prize has been awarded to No Gallery (New York) for encapsulating the same spirit of ambition, vision, and innovation in which the fair was founded in 1994. The gallery will present a solo booth featuring new paintings by Valentina Vaccarella, in which the artist depicts female political figures through a silkscreen process that incorporates oil, acrylic, and a Chanel camellia on linens to examine conflicts of power and responsibility. The jury for this year’s prize comprised KJ Freeman, former recipient of the prize and founder of HOUSING (New York); Susanna Temkin, Curator at El Museo del Barrio; and Nicole Berry, Executive Director of The Armory Show.
Since its founding in 1994, the fair plays a leading role in New York’s position as an important cultural capital through elevated presentations, thoughtful programming, curatorial leadership, meaningful institutional partnerships, and engaging public art activations.
CULTURAL PARTNERS AND ARMORY SPOTLIGHT
Inaugurated in 2022 as part of the fair’s Cultural Partners program, Armory Spotlight provides a booth to a New York cultural institution to support its visibility, sustainability, and growth. The Cultural Partners program fosters year-round collaborations with New York’s leading cultural institutions and highlights the artistic abundance of the city. The partnerships create unique opportunities for support through audience engagement and dynamic programming.
The recipient of Armory Spotlight will be announced in Summer 2023 alongside
Cultural Partners and Not-For-Profit exhibitors.
ARMORY OFF-SITE
Armory Off-Site will return in 2023 with large-scale public art installations presented by participating galleries across the city’s parks and public spaces. The program includes the fair’s partnership with the United States Tennis Association, Armory Off-Site at the US Open. Projects will be announced in Summer 2023.
Just a note ~ This year, Frieze, one of the world’s leading contemporary art organizations, acquired The Armory Show in New York, and signed an agreement to acquire EXPO CHICAGO.
The Armory Show will take place from September 8-10 at Javits Center, 429 11th Avenue, NYC. Tickets on sale now.
Fair Dates
VIP Preview Day (by invitation only)
Thursday, September 7, 2023
Public Days
Friday, September 8-Sunday, September 10, 2023
Did you know that the Javits Center has the largest green roof in New York City? While you’re there, check out the artwork in the Hudson Yards #7 subway station ~ The Shed and The Vessel ~ and the High Line Plinth.
Tribeca Galleries Stay Open Late September 8th from 6-8pm
The following Tribeca galleries below will be participating at The Armory Show 2023:
Gaa Gallery
GRIMM
Jack Barrett
James Cohan (52 Walker Street)
James Cohan (48 Walker Street)
Nicodim Gallery
NINO MIER GALLERY
Sapar Contemporary
SHRINE
Timothy Taylor
Armory Off-Site
The Armory Show announces the public art installations of Armory Off-Site, the third edition of the art fair’s outdoor art program, which brings large-scale artworks to New York City’s parks and public spaces. In addition to partnering for the second time with the United States Tennis Association (USTA) to present three large-scale sculptures at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center during the US Open, The Armory Show is partnering with Times Square Arts on the organization’s Midnight Moment program.
Each Off-Site work will be on view during The Armory Show, which takes place at the Javits Center this September 8–10, and many will remain in place for the rest of the year. Installations at the US Open will be on view for the duration of the tournament, from August 22 through September 10, 2023.
Ayesha Singh, Continuous Coexistences I, [Part 2] (2019)
Nature Morte (New Delhi)Coexistences I, [Part 2] is part of Ayesha Singh’s series of “Hybrid Drawings” (2015–ongoing), sculptural translations derived from sketches of imagined structures, drawing upon the motifs of Gothic, Indo-Saracenic, Victorian, Mughal, and brutalist motifs. Each form points toward histories of the movement of peoples via an appropriation of regional architectural forms, combining markers of kingdoms, colonies, and localities that exist today. Referencing various histories, geographies, and cultures, the sculptures present a unification of the transcultural identity. Viewers are invited to navigate the three-dimensional world of these realized drawings, alighting upon new architectural forms as they move through the space. Presented in partnership with the New York City Department of Transportation’s Art Program (NYC DOT Art) and the Village Alliance.
Bella Abzug Park
Tamar Ettun, LILIT (2023) and The Wave Caves (2022–2023)
Dreamsong (Minneapolis)
In two performances of LILIT, Tamar Ettun will conjure and inhabit the persona of Lilit, an aerial spirit demon with origins in Sumerian, Akkadian, and Judaic mythology. In the 2nd to 7th centuries, artist-healers created spells, drawings, and talismanic objects to trap demons like Lilit, who was characterized as a dangerously sexual female entity, and appeared frequently on incantation bowls used in protective rituals. Enthralled by the images inscribed on these ancient objects, Ettun studied their vocabulary and developed her own language to revive the tradition through a contemporary feminist lens, subverting Lilit’s misogynistic archetype and revamping her image as an Empathic Demon. LILIT shares her origin story from a feminist perspective, inviting the audience to participate in somatic movement exercises to connect with their bodies and befriend their inner demons. As part of this multi-disciplinary project, The Wave Caves (2022–2023) creates a safe haven for Lilit, who was banished for pursuing independence. This monumental work, constructed of painted, hand-dyed, and hand-stitched boat sails, references the medieval myth in which Lilit escapes to the Red Sea.
Performances will be held at 11am on Friday, September 8, and 5pm on Saturday, September 9. The installation will be on view from 11am to 2pm on Friday, September 8, and from 5pm to 7pm on Saturday, September 9. Presented in partnership with NYC Parks & Hudson Yards Hell’s Kitchen Alliance.
Collect Pond Park
Reza Aramesh, Site of the Fall: Study of the Renaissance Garden,
Action 182: At 01:01 pm Saturday 03 Feb 1968 (2017)
Night Gallery (Los Angeles)
In his ongoing sculptural series Site of the Fall – Study of the Renaissance Garden (2016 – present), Reza Aramesh restages images from war reportage dating from the Vietnam War to the present, exploring societal conventions related to race, class, and sexuality. The sculptures reimagine Renaissance icons of anguish and survival, such as Saint Sebastian, in a postcolonial context. Aramesh’s sculptures often depict working class men from his native Iran and other locations around the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Aramesh critiques the still-prevalent idea that the period represents the highest point of artistic achievement by a superior European civilization, and reconsiders whose bodies and likenesses deserve to be memorialized in marble. Presented in partnership with NYC Parks.
Times Square
Shahzia Sikander, Reckoning (2020)
Sean Kelly (New York, Los Angeles)
Shahzia Sikander’s video work Reckoning (2020) will be on view each night in September across the 90-plus electronic billboards of Times Square, as part of Times Square Arts’ Midnight Moment program. Presented in partnership with Sean Kelly and Times Square Arts, Reckoning is an intricate animation made from multiple layered drawings that restage an imaginary historical Indo-Persian-Turkish miniature painting. The work depicts a dramatic, choreographed sequence of events featuring warrior-like figures entangled in joust, creating inflection points that embody a moment of reckoning. These fluid and perpetually fighting forms are juxtaposed against an abstract flowering landscape, mirroring the conceptual, political and physical tensions that exist within broader global relationships, such as migrant and citizen, woman and power, and human and nature.
Reckoning will be on view from September 1 to September 30, from 11:57pm to midnight. On Thursday, September 28 from 11:30pm to midnight, Times Square Arts will host a live musical performance to accompany Sikander’s Midnight Moment on the Broadway pedestrian plaza between 45th and 46th Streets. The performance features Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Du Yun, vocalist Zeb Bangash, and violinist Eddy Kwon. Presented in partnership with Sean Kelly and Times Square Arts.
Armory Off-Site at the US Open
The Armory Show will partner for the second time with the USTA to present three large-scale sculptures at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center during the US Open, August 22–September 10, 2023. Building upon the USTA’s “Be Open” social impact campaign, the presentation champions artists from underrepresented backgrounds. The partnership is grounded in the USTA and The Armory Show’s shared vision for creativity, inspiration, and equity.
David Roy, Danger Noodle V w/ LS 98 (2023)
56 Henry (New York)
David Roy will fabricate a new rocket sculpture updating a mold from the artist’s ongoing “Gravity Monster” series. Making its debut at the US Open, the not-yet-shown sculpture will draw on the visual language of rocket science, as Roy deploys durable materials common to the aerospace industry, such as fiberglass, resin, and Kevlar. The sculpture, Danger Noodle V w/ LS 98, will be displayed on a launch pad; following the exhibition, Roy plans to launch the fully functional rocket.
Allen-Golder Carpenter, Foundation 6 (2023)
No Gallery (New York)
Allen-Golder Carpenter’s sculpture includes stacked concrete casts of Nike “Air Force” soles, inspired by a passage in the essay collection The Black Aesthetic, describing how Nike intended to discontinue the shoe until Black individuals influenced the company, by writing letters, to bring it back. This revival allowed the shoe to become a foundation in modern street style, symbolizing the foundational role of Black people in shaping culture. Carpenter, as a Black individual, incorporates ancestor worship into his work, and Foundation 6 functions as an altar, honoring those who have passed and immortalizing cultural moments, without requiring them to be ancient.
Zizipho Poswa, Mam’uNoBongile (2023)
Southern Guild (Cape Town)
Zizipho Poswa’s monumental sculptures are inspired by the spirituality and traditions of her Xhosa culture. They explore the physical and metaphorical acts of bearing the load, paying homage to the women within the artist’s extended community. Mam’uNoBongile is titled after a matriarch named Bongile (meaning “to praise or give thanks”) in Poswa’s home village of Holela in South Africa’s rural Eastern Cape province. The work’s depicted load, an ample stalk of bananas, honors the women of West Africa, for whom bananas are a vital source of economic empowerment. The work is a monument to sustenance and sacrifice, and its presentation in bronze—a material associated with the memorials to colonial and Apartheid-era patriarchs—invites us to explore an alternative framework for respect, recognition, and remembrance.
PHOTOFAIRS New York
Running alongside The Armory Show within Javits Center, (separate entrance), PHOTOFAIRS New York will roll out its inaugural, annual exhibition. This new, contemporary art fair is dedicated to photo-based works, digital art and new media. The fair’s debut edition welcomes a highly curated selection of exhibitors from around the world, from renowned photography dealers to interdisciplinary contemporary art galleries, to organizations at the forefront of emerging technologies.
Organizations presenting special projects include Fotografiska, Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York, Gagosian Quarterly, and Jamaica Art Society, among others. A full list of exhibitors and participating organizations can be found Here. PHOTOFAIRS New York will run concurrently with The Armory Show, from September 8-10, with a VIP showing on September 7th.
Armory Art Week + Beyond
Spring/BREAK Art Show returns for its 12th edition in NYC with this year’s Theme – Wild Card.
A Collectors First Look Preview will take place on September 6th from 11am to 5pm
Opening Night for Spring/Break NYC is September 6th from 5-8pm
Spring/Break Show Days will take place from September 7-11 from 11am to 7pm.
Spring/Break Art Show NYC is located 625 Madison Avenue, between 58th and 59th Streets, NYC.
Above images courtesy of the artist, Michael Wolf at the 2023 SPRING/BREAK Art Show Booth #1044, and Connie Lee, President, Art Lives Here, Inc.
Independent + Independent 20th Century
Independent 20th Century, September 7-10.
The fair is located in the historical Battery Maritime Building, which was built in 1908. This year, the fair features diverse presentations of approximately 50 artists that encompass American debuts, new aspects of well-known artists, women artists throughout the 20th century, Caribbean and South American voices, self-taught artists, Black art communities, international Pop, Italian avant-garde, and more. In addition, Independent will welcome the non-profit Hauser & Wirth Institute, a private foundation dedicated to increasing access to artists’ archives. For their Independent debut, Hauser & Wirth Institute will present selections from two artists’ archives it has recently supported: Zahoor ul Akhlaq (1941-1999) and Mary Dill Henry (1913-2009).
Art on Paper
Art on Paper, September 7-10. Pier 36 Downtown at 299 South Street, NYC
Art on Paper, New York City’s celebrated, medium-driven fair, returns to downtown Manhattan’s Pier 36 during September 2023’s Armory Art Week with 100 galleries featuring top modern and contemporary paper-based art. The fair’s ninth edition will showcase unique and powerful projects curated by Artistic Director Nato Thompson, with a focus on can’t-miss performances highlighting the creative potential of paper.
Crossing the Line Festival, September 8-13 at FIAF Gallery, 22 East 60th Street, 1st Floor, NYC
FIAF presents an exciting 16th edition of Crossing The Line Festival, its annual celebration of dynamic artists and fresh perspectives from around the French-speaking world.
Superfine Art Fair NYC, September 14-17, Iron23, 29 West 23rd Street in the historic Flatiron District, NYC.
Created in 2015 as a direct answer to the problem of stuffy art fairs and galleries, Superfine Art Fair has been showing artists from around the world how to sell their art at our fairs in New York City, Washington DC, Miami Beach, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. This is the 6th edition of Superfine Art Fair in NYC.
Affordable Art Fair New York, September 20-24, Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street, NYC
Affordable Art Fair NYC returns to the Metropolitan Pavilion this September 20 – 24, 2023. The fair showcases original contemporary artworks ranging in price between $100 to $10,000.
IFPDA Print Fair, October 26-29, The River Pavilion, Javits Center, 429 11th Avenue, NYC
This fall, the International Fine Print Dealers Association returns to the Javits Center in New York for the 30th edition of the preeminent fair for prints and printmaking. The IFPDA Print Fair is the largest international art fair dedicated to prints and printmaking, spanning periods and styles from old masters to contemporary, making it a must-see destination for collectors and curators.
The Art Show (ADAA), November 1-5, 2023, Park Avenue Armory, 67th Street and Park Avenue, NYC
The Art Show offers intimately scaled and thoughtfully curated presentations of the highest quality-fostering active conversations with gallerists, new relationships, and close looking at works by artists from a variety of genres, practices, and national and international origins. Organized annually by the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA). It has a history of programming that ranges from artist performances to dynamic keynote presentations, The Art Show provides its audience with a wide scope of cultural experiences, meaningful interactions, and illuminating exposure to phenomenal works of art.
Take a look-back at The Armory Show and Armory Art Week 2022.