The Armory ShowThe 2023 edition in New York will feature booths from more than 225 galleries, organizers of the New York fair announced Thursday. The show will take place from September 8 to 10, with a VIP opening on September 7. For the first time, it will be joined at the Javits Center by a simultaneous photography fair, New York Photography Fairs.
The fair’s executive director, Nicole Berry, says organizers are “capitalizing on [their] a heightened understanding of this world-class exhibition space by bringing a series of subtle refinements to a celebrated design. These changes further optimize the floor plan, enhance the visitor experience, and enhance the sense of intimacy with presentations. The fair will be both familiar and fresh for visitors.”
The list of attendees at the Armory Show this year marks a slight drop in the number of booths at the fair compared to last year, when about 250 galleries took part. In 2021, amid the global Covid-19 shutdowns, 157 galleries participated in the physical fair while 50 galleries participated online. Even slightly reduced, The Armory Show is one of the largest art fairs in New York and the world. (This month Tefaf New York And Frieze New York the fairs will host 91 and 69 galleries respectively.)
More than 140 galleries from last year’s show return to The Armory Show, including New York stalwarts James Cohan, 303 Gallery, Kasmin and Sean Kelly, as well as London’s Victoria Miro, Bogotá’s Instituto de Visión, Almine Rech based in Paris and the Belgian gallery Zénon X.
Galleries such as Clearing, Pilar Corrais, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Lehmann Maupin and Pace Prints are returning to the fair after a hiatus, organizers say. More than 40 exhibitors will attend the show for the first time, including Alexander Berggruen, 56 Henry, Nina Johnson and Galeria Marilia Razuk.
Notably absent from the list of exhibitors are the three so-called New York-based mega-galleries – Gagosian, David Zwirner and Pace – as well as Hauser & Wirth, all of which participated in the latest edition of the fair. All four also have expansive spaces within 15 blocks of the fair.
The sector of the fair for large-scale works, Platform, is curated by curator Eva Respini, who is resign as Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. The sector will feature works by Jean Shin, Teresita Fernández, Shahzia Sikander, Devan Shimoyama and others.
The fair awarded its annual Gramercy International Award – so dubbed after the original name of the fair – to No Gallery, which will receive a free stand at the fair. The prize, now in its fifth year, recognizes an ambitious New York gallery that has never participated in the fair. No gallery will use the free platform to show a solo stand of paintings by Valentina Vaccarella.
Prior to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, The Armory Show announced that it to relocate at New York’s Javits Center, a huge convention center that can accommodate up to 5,000 people in four city blocks. Previously, the event had been held at the docks on Manhattan’s West Side for nearly 20 years. In 2021, the fair also moved from spring to late summer, reducing competition in New York’s increasingly busy spring art calendar.
