The partnership is in its third consecutive year and represents part of the fourth iteration of The Armory Show’s public artworks project, Armory Off-Site.

“We’re thrilled to again partner with the US Open to showcase artworks by artists of underrepresented backgrounds. Both The Armory Show and the US Open are defining parts of New York’s fall calendar, and this partnership comes during an exciting cultural moment for New York City,” Kyla McMillan, director of The Armory Show told ARTnews via email. “Through our partnership, we hope to reach new and familiar audiences by providing an opportunity to discover artists and artworks, perhaps even forming a lasting connection with the fair.”

The projects on view during the US Open include the installation Tetl Mirror I (2024) by Claudia Peña Salinas, presented by Embajada, which explores Aztec and Mayan mythology; Eva Robarts’ sculpture, Fantasy of Happiness (2022), which uses discarded tennis balls caught within the chain-link of a reclaimed gate and is presented by the gallery Ruttkowski;68; Taiwanese-Canadian sculptor An Te Liu’s bronze-casted Venus Redux (2018), presented by Blouin Division; and Tomokazu Matsuyama’s Runner (2021), presented by Kavi Gupta.

The works will be on view throughout the tournament, from August 19 to September 8. As part of US Open Fan Week, access to Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is free from August 19 through August 25.

The Armory Off Site program includes performances across New York City. The artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons’s recent work Procession of Angels for Radical Love and Unity (2024) is comprised of visits to seven historically significant New York City communities, from Harlem Art Park to Madison Square Park, with poetry readings at each site and a workshops and performances at the end of the route. 

Oliver Herring will present 20-minute performance that serves as an homage to “queer icons whose creative forces and visionary careers were tragically and prematurely interrupted” on the Bowery, and a new work by David Salle with grace Times Square as part of the Midnight Moment program.

This year The Armory Show will celebrate its 30th anniversary. More than 235 galleries are expected to participate in the fair, scheduled to run from September 6–8, with a VIP preview day on September 5, at the Javits Center in Manhattan.

At the time of the announcement, Frieze chief executive Simon Fox told ARTnews that the fairs overlapping “was not ideal,” but that the overlap wasn’t something that could be remedied by simply moving the dates of one or both fairs. Fox, however, didn’t seem worried about the conflict.

“Let’s start with the fact that the US art market is the biggest in the world by far,” Fox said, noting that Frieze New York and the Armory Show are intrinsically different. Frieze New York is much smaller, and often includes mega-galleries like Gagosian and David Zwirner, who recently have chosen to participate in the new Seoul fair, now in its second edition, instead of the Armory Show.

“They [have] different audiences, different histories—this just allows us to play a bigger role in an exciting new marketplace,” Fox said. “As I mentioned, the market is huge. The two can coexist very comfortably as they currently do. We think we can enhance what the Armory Show currently does.”

It’s not clear what, if any, changes Frieze will introduce to its newly acquired fairs. The company said at the time of the announcement that both Armory and Expo Chicago would retain their management structures and current staff. What is clear, however, is that art dealers with a history of participating in the Armory Show agree that fair is a singular event representative of New York City. 

Nick Olney, president of Kasmin gallery, sees the Armory Show as imprinted with New York City’s DNA. It’s as much part of the city, or at least the city’s art world, as 10th Avenue or the loft galleries in Tribeca. 

“To have a fair that kicks off the season at Javits Center, it’s really indispensable,” Olney told ARTnews. “It’s like the first week back to school. Not only do you see people, dealers and collectors, that may have been gone for the summer, but the location makes it easy to bring clients back to the gallery, or to other openings in Chelsea.”

Kasmin’s booth, a commanding space just to the right of the fair’s entrance, is a sampling from their program, with works from Elliott Hundley, Bosco Sodi, and Diana Al-Hadid on view.

Olney pointed out that the Armory Show has always been successful at getting New Yorkers to attend the fair, which is less true of Frieze’s New York fair. And while Frieze New York has “a bit more polish” and is more international, the Armory does have its fair share of European collectors and dealers.

In some ways the Armory Show has everything that Frieze New York lacks. It’s more community driven and frequently partners with legacy institutions in the city like the Kitchen and the final major tennis tournament of the year, the US Open, whereas Frieze New York, with around 60 galleries each awkwardly separated by a full floor at the Shed in Hudson Yards, has none of the New York grit that even the bluest-chip galleries in the city like to wear on their sleeve.

Perhaps it’s that sense of community that Frieze wanted to tap into. Some dealers hope that Frieze, which also operates fairs in London and Los Angeles, will be a boon for the Armory, allowing it to further dig into its New Yorkness and deepen relationships with the city’s cultural institutions like the Kitchen and Creative Time.

Candice Madey, who has a gallery in New York’s Lower East Side, sees the acquisition as a firm positive for Armory, in large part because of Frieze’s experience in organizing fairs and dedication to the arts. 

“I think it’s quite different when a fair is owned by an expo-producing company that also deals with watches one week and cars the next,” Madey said. “Frieze began in the art world with a magazine and continues in that tradition with its fairs.”

Frieze bought the Armory Show from Vornado Realty Trust, which announced the sale as part of a $124.4 million deal in which the conglomerate sold four Manhattan retail properties. (Frieze only bought the fair, sources say, and had nothing to do with the retail properties.) The price Frieze paid for the Armory has not been disclosed by their parent company, Endeavor. Still, for insiders with knowledge of the sale the price seemed low, especially when one considers the cost of real estate in Manhattan, where where a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan can sell for millions alone.

The sale raised more than a few eyebrows in the art world, but some saw it coming. A source knowledgeable about the deal’s inner workings told ARTnews that Vornado had been thinking about selling the Armory Show for at least two years. Vornado leadership had, in the past, given Armory Show executive director Nicole Berry free reign to run the fair, but new leadership at the company had started to offer unwelcome advice and ideas. Given the low price, it would seem Vornado preferred to leave the art world to the artists and wash their hands of the fair.

For Madey, New York’s current two-fair system is ideal because she has different motivations for participating in each fair. 

“The Armory has always been big. The sheer volume of the fair has made it a success for us because of how many eyes are on the work,” she said.  

This year, Madey has two booths at the Armory, one features work by Samantha Nye, while the other, a shared booth with Nina Johnson, will show work by artist Patrick Dean Hubbell, a strategy that she says increases exposure for the artists. 

“I’m not going to the Armory with like a booth of my program, you know, one thing from each artist. I intentionally do these solo projects here because the Armory is really about exposure for these two younger artists that I think are really promising and people are going to notice it and pay attention,” Madey said. Frieze, meanwhile, is more of a targeted audience, according to Madey. That fair’s smaller size may not be enough to excite a newer collector, she added.

The biggest problem, some dealers said, is Frieze Seoul. “We are all expecting a different thing, but no one knows what or when a change will come. Only that it’s coming,” Omayra Alvarado-Jensen, executive director of gallery Insitituto de Visión, which has locations in New York and Bogotá, Colombia, told ARTnews.

Alvarado-Jensen said she’s heard people wonder if the Armory Show and Frieze New York will combine, leaving one or the other in the dust, due to the conflict with Frieze Seoul. Of course, that’s just speculation. “The fact is, I’m not worried about it now. I’m thinking about three years from now,” she said. 

Alvarado-Jensen has no doubt that the Armory and Frieze NY can co-exist. They have, she points out, for a long time. “As a gallerist, what I’m hoping is that the fairs keep their identities, and that Frieze is just going to make Armory stronger, sexier, that they can be freer to deepen the affiliation with the city.” 

This year, Instituto has brought work from Abel Rodríguez, a sage of the Nonuya people who possesses the ancestral knowledge of medicinal plants and of the ecological systems of the Amazon basin. It’s quintessential Armory, speaking to the city’s massive Latin American and indigenous population. It’s the kind of work that she hopes the fair will continue to champion.

Still, Alvarado-Jensen noted, there will be art advisers and collectors who will have to choose between Armory and Seoul, which will unavoidably have long-term effects.

All dealers can do for the moment is wait and see, they said. There are few good options for shifting either fair. Moving Armory a few weeks might put the show too close to the November auction sales, which struggled last year in an oversaturated market, or worse, up against Art Basel Miami Beach. In the meantime, the art world will have to see how the two fairs fare against each other. Dealers speculated to ARTnews that this might be Frieze’s plan: to let the two fairs compete and see which wins out and which has to change. 

“I just don’t think they can do Seoul and the Armory at the same time,” Alvarado-Jensen said. “No matter how strong the market is, you cannot be in two places at once, and in the end, Frieze needs to turn a profit. It’s a business.”

For now, it’s status quo. In an emailed statement, Berry confirmed that the Armory Show would take place again next year at the Javits Center for its 30th edition. Work on that edition will promptly begin once this year’s fair wraps. 

“The acquisition of the Armory Show by Frieze expands the reach of the organization within the art market and unlocks opportunities for future growth, development, and collaboration between the Frieze-named art fairs and its newly acquired event,” Berry said.

Editors note: An earlier version of this article mistakenly said that Frieze also purchased four retail properties sold concurrently by Vornado for a total of $124 million. Frieze only purchased the Armory Show from Vornado for an undisclosed sum.

Today, the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair (NYIABF), the long-running fair headed up by veteran art fair organizer Sanford Smith, called off its 2021 edition, which was to take place at the Park Avenue Armory September 9–12. In a statement, Smith said he was “disappointed that the fair cannot go on, but for everyone’s safety—our exhibitors, staff, and public—we have made the difficult decision to cancel” due to the uncertainty caused by the spread of the Delta variant.

In pre-pandemic iterations, Smith said his fair usually has over 200 exhibitors participating, but this year’s had been pared down to 119 participants—too few to continue with the event. The cause, according to Smith, is the current travel ban from Europe to the United States, which forced European dealers to pull out over fears that they would not be able to re-enter their respective countries.

“It was like a run on the bank,” Smith said of the slew of dropouts, noting that several European dealers had arranged to send employees through Cyprus and Barbados for quarantine periods before entering the U.S. The next edition of the book fair is now scheduled for April 2022.

Just last week, another major trade fair cancelled its planned August 19 opening at the Javits Center in New York: the annual New York Auto Show, which hoped to see some 1 million visitors. But the Armory Show, first major U.S. art fair to stage an edition since the onset of the pandemic, is still set to take place at the Javits Center September 9-12—the same dates as the canceled book fair.

Before the pandemic, the Armory Show had planned for its 2021 dates to move to September from its typical time in March as part of its move from the city’s westside piers to the Javits Center. (The March 2020 edition of the Armory Show was one of the last in-person fairs to be staged before the global lockdown.)

As Covid-19 cases continue to rise because of the Delta variant, the Armory Show said it would make changes to its exhibitor list. Of the 212 international galleries slated to present booths in the fair, only 75 percent (157 of them) will now participate in-person; 55 international galleries—the majority of them European—have deferred their in-person presentations to the 2022 edition of the fair. Instead, they will participate in the Armory Show’s new digital platform, Armory Online, a virtual presentation of the fair developed in partnership with the company Artlogic. Of the 157 still planning to present in-person, 44 are international galleries.

“While some international exhibitors are not be able to participate this year due to the ongoing Covid-19 travel restrictions, we are doing everything we can to support their attendance and are providing options to best suit their needs,” Armory Show executive director Nicole Berry told ARTnews. “We are committed to supporting our exhibitors in order to create the best experience possible for our fair in September.”

In May, the IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair announced that it would postpone its own annual fair, which had been scheduled at the Javits Center in October. David Tunick, the fair’s president, said in a statement that an in-person edition “would place an undue burden on our members in the E.U., the U.K., and Asia” because of international travel restrictions. The fair presented a digital edition this past spring and expects to return to the Javits in October 2022.

Fairs scheduled later in the fall in the Park Avenue Armory building include the ADAA Art Show (November 3–7), which brings together only U.S.-based galleries, and the 10th anniversary edition of Sanford Smith’s own Salon Art + Design fair (November 11–15). As of now, both events are still on.

The fair will host around 60 exhibitors in its 2021 edition, meaning that it will be less than half the size of its 2019 event. Victoria Siddall, the global director of the Frieze art fairs, described the relocation to the Shed as “an exciting opportunity to hold a smaller fair” alongside an online viewing room. Next year’s programming at the fair will still include Frame, a section dedicated to younger galleries, as well as special projects, talks, and collaborations. 

Alex Poots, the artistic director and chief executive of The Shed, said in a statement, “The Shed is committed to developing new partnerships and approaches to support the arts and our city at this critical time. We’re looking forward to welcoming Frieze New York together with their artists, galleries and visitors to The Shed next spring,” said Poots. 

Frieze New York was among the first major art fairs to cancel its 2020 edition due to the coronavirus pandemic. The upcoming edition is currently slated to run May 5–9 of next year, and the fair will charge exhibitors around $6,300 to show in its online viewing rooms. Organizers have not indicated whether the move to the Shed will be permanent.

It is not the only fair to relocate to Hudson Yards this year. In March, the Armory Show announced that, after 19 years on Manhattan’s piers, the fair would move to the Javits Convention Center for its 2021 edition. The announcement followed ongoing issues at the piers, some of which were deemed by city inspectors as structurally unsound around a week before the opening of the 2019 edition (the edition proceeded at the piers, with last-minute adjustments). Like the Shed, the Javits Center is a short walk from Chelsea, one of New York’s biggest gallery districts.

Night Gallery (of Los Angeles) received the $20,000 Pommery Prize for its presentation of artist Christine Wang’s new series of paintings titled “Meme Girl” (2020). Now in its second year, the Pommery Prize recognizes large-scale works shown in the fair’s “Platform” section, which was curated this year by Anne Ellegood, the executive director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

The $10,000 Presents Prize, which celebrates an “innovative” presentation in the exhibition’s “Presents” section for first-time exhibitors, went to Upfor (Portland, Oregon) for its solo show of new work by artist Julie Green. Jurors for the prize included Naomi Baigell, managing director of Athena Art Finance; Tina Perry, collector and president of the Oprah Winfrey Network; Bernard Lumpkin, collector and philanthropist; and Eric Shiner, executive director of Pioneer Works in Brooklyn.

Additionally, the inaugural edition of the $10,000 Aware Prize for solo presentations by women artists—presented by the Paris-based nonprofit AWARE (Archives of Women Artists, Research, and Exhibitions) in partnership with the Armory Show—was given to June Edmonds, whose work at the fair is presented by the Luis De Jesus Los Angeles gallery. Edmonds is known for abstract paintings that explore race, gender, and politics, and the prize had a jury that included AWARE co-founder Camille Morineau, writer and curatorial activist Maura Reilly, and Swiss Institute director Simon Castets, among others.

The ADAA Art Show
Park Avenue Armory, February 27–March 1
The Art Dealers Association of America’s Art Show features artworks by Nina Chanel Abney at Pace Prints (New York), pieces by Ficre Ghebreyesus at Galerie Lelong (New York and Paris), Jeffrey Gibson’s elaborately beaded works at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. (New York), and more. Others among the 72 galleries showing at the ADAA Art Show include David Kordansky (Los Angeles), making its debut appearance at the fair this year, as well as P.P.O.W. (New York) and Jessica Silverman (San Francisco). Single-day admission is $25.
Hours and tickets

The Armory Show
Piers 90 and 94, March 5–8
The 2020 edition of the Armory Show will bring together more than 180 international exhibitors, including returning galleries like Victoria Miro (of London and Venice), Kayne Griffin Corcoran (Los Angeles), Sean Kelly (New York and Taipei), and 303 Gallery (New York). Among the first-time participants at the fair are Carbon 12 (Dubai), Microscope Gallery (Brooklyn), Denny Dimin Gallery (New York), and Yavuz Gallery (Singapore). Pier 90 will host the exhibition’s curated sections, including “Perspectives,” which features works by artists like Joseph Cornell, Robert Indiana, and Philip Guston in a contemporary context; “Focus,” organized by ICA L.A. curator Jamillah James; and “Platform,” a section for large-scale artworks curated by ICA L.A. director Anne Ellegood. General admission costs $55 on Thursday and Friday and $63 on Saturday and Sunday.
Hours and tickets

Volta New York
Metropolitan West, March 5–8
Having been canceled last year due to building issues at Pier 92, Volta is making a comeback at a new location. It will welcome 53 exhibitors—including Green Point Projects (Brooklyn), Sim Smith (London), and Mizoe Art Gallery (Tokyo)—at an event space on Manhattan’s West Side. A few of the newcomers to the fair are Gallery 1957 (Accra), showing work by Yaw Owusu, and x-ist (Istanbul), with an exhibition of new work by Ansen Atilla. Single-day entry is $25.
Hours and tickets

Independent
Spring Studios, March 6–8
Among the enterprises presenting at the selective and always spirited Independent art fair are White Columns (New York), Galerie Eva Presenhuber (Zurich and New York), Monique Meloche (Chicago), A Gentil Carioca (Rio de Janeiro), Carlos/Ishikawa (London), and more. Additionally, the New York–based fair Object & Thing, staging its sophomore edition later this year, will present a special selection of art and design pieces. Day passes to Independent cost $35.
Hours and tickets

Spring/Break Art Show
625 Madison Avenue, March 4–9
On the heels of its second presentation in Los Angeles, Spring/Break Art Show, where curatorial projects often foreground madcap, unconventional artworks, will move to the former offices of fashion designer Ralph Lauren for its upcoming edition in New York. Taking up the theme “In Excess,” the fair will span two floors of the building and feature 100 projects with more than 800 works on view. Expect exhibitions exploring consumerism, different interpretations of the “American dream,” and more. General admission is $25.
Hours and tickets

Art on Paper
Pier 36, March 6–8
As its name suggests, Art on Paper specializes in modern and contemporary paper-based artworks. This year’s edition will convene 95 galleries and public projects, including Danese/Corey (New York), Stoney Road Press (Dublin), Pigment Gallery (Barcelona), and Pan American Art Projects (Miami). Special projects at the event include work by Edgar Heap of Birds, presented by Gallery Fritz (Santa Fe), and Karen Margolis, with K. Imperial Fine Art (San Francisco). One-day admission costs $25.
Hours and tickets

Clio Art Fair
550 West 29th Street, March 6–8
The six-year-old Clio Art Fair, which calls itself “the anti-fair for independent artists,” returns with presentations by 53 artists. The event will spotlight filmmaker and performance artist Thirza Cuthand, whose work appeared in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, photographers Minjin Kang and Mijoo Kim, sculptor Giorgio Guidi, and others. Entry will be free to the public on March 6, and general admission costs $18 on March 7 and 8. 
Hours and tickets

Scope New York
Metropolitan Pavilion, March 6–8
For its 20th edition in New York, Scope will have offerings from Artemiro Gallery (New York), Blockprojects (Melbourne), Moonlight Art Space (Buenos Aires), the Chemistry Gallery (Prague), and more enterprises. A special project by painter and sculptor Brendan Monroe will be on view at the fair’s entrance. Day passes to Scope cost $25.
Hours and tickets

Salon Zürcher
Zürcher Gallery, March 3–8
If you find yourself looking for an antidote to the frenzied energy of the bigger fairs, consider stopping by the 22nd edition of Salon Zürcher—billed as a “mini art fair” and an “intimate alternative” to larger events. In service of the theme “The 11 Women of Spirit,” Salon Zürcher will show works by Nicole Peyrafitte, Sumayyah Samaha, Debra Drexler, Aphrodite Désirée Navab, and others. The exhibition is free and open to the public.
Hours

Los Angeles Spring/Break Art Show Secures New Location for 2020 Edition
For its second edition in Los Angeles, the Spring/Break Art Show will take place in a 65,000-square-foot former industrial factory at Skylight ROW DTLA. The space was built between 1917 and 1923 as part of the L.A. Terminal Market, and SPRING/BREAK is the first to use it for an art event. The show, which will run from February 14 to 16, will feature 60 presentations by over 100 independent curators taking up the theme “In Excess.”

Thursday, January 30

Antwaun Sargent to Curate Section of Paris Photo New York Fair
Critic Antwaun Sargent has been tapped to oversee a section of the Paris Photo New York fair, which is being organized with AIPAD and slated to run from April 2 to 5 at Pier 94 on Manhattan’s West Side. Sargent’s section will focus on work by emerging photographers at the inaugural New York edition of the fair. Sargent, who recently profiled Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys for ARTnews, is the author of The New Black Vanguard, an Aperture book focused on young black fashion photographers.

Toledo Museum of Art Appoints New Director
Adam M. Levine, who currently serves as director and CEO of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida, will join the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio as director on May 1. Prior to joining the Cummer Museum, Levine worked as deputy director and curator of ancient art at the TMA. Some of his curatorial credits at the TMA included “The Mummies: From Egypt to Toledo” (2018), “Glorious Splendor: Treasures of Early Christian Art” (2017), and “I Approve This Message: Decoding Political Ads” (2016).

SP-Arte 2019.

Wednesday, January 29

The Art Show Names 2020 Exhibitors 
The Art Show, an annual fair in New York organized by the Art Dealers Association of America, has named the participants for its 2020 edition, which runs February 27 to March 1 at the Park Avenue Armory. This edition will feature 72 presentation from ADAA member galleries across the country, including 40 solo presentations and 19 exhibitions dedicated to female artists. The exhibitions include P.P.O.W’s show of new works by Ramiro Gomez, paintings by Jane Wilson presented by DC Moore Gallery, and new embroidered pieces by Jordan Nassar exhibited by James Cohan. The fair’s first-time exhibitors include David Kordansky Gallery, McClain Gallery, Andrew Kreps Gallery, Gallery Wendi Norris, Franklin Parrasch Gallery, Ricco/Maresca Gallery, and Leon Tovar Gallery. A full list of presenters can be found here.

Tarka Russell and Chloë Waddington.

Tuesday, January 28

Timothy Taylor Gallery Names Two New Directors
Timothy Taylor gallery has appointed two directors—one for its New York space and another for its location in London. Chloë Waddington, the managing director of David Kordansky gallery in Los Angeles, has been brought on as Timothy Taylor’s New York director, and Tarka Russell has been promoted to director of the London space, which recently doubled in size following an expansion.

Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Gives $2.5 M. to U.S. Universities
The New York–based Helen Frankenthaler Foundation has awarded $500,000 each to five universities in the United States: the Graduate Center at CUNY, Harvard University, the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, Stanford University, and the University of Chicago. The funds will go toward establishing endowments that will offer fellowships to doctoral students in art history. Last year, the foundation established its Frankenthaler Scholarships to support art and art history graduate programs around the country and has so far distributed over $4 million.

Judy Chicago, Rearrangeable Rainbow Blocks, 1965, automobile lacquer on aluminum.

Monday, January 27

Nasher Sculpture Center Reveals Recent Acquisitions and Gifts
The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas has purchased three artworks, by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Judy Chicago, and Beverly Semmes, using its Kaleta A. Doolin Acquisitions Fund for Women Artists. Included in the purchase is Chicago’s significant early work Rearrangeable Rainbow Blocks from 1965. The institution has also been gifted five pieces by four artists: John Chamberlain, David McManaway, Joan Miró, and Claes Oldenburg.

The Armory Show Details ‘Platform’ Section at 2020 Edition
The Armory Show, set to run in New York from March 5 to 8, has revealed the artists participating in its curated “Platform” section for large-scale works. Organized by Anne Ellegood, the recently appointed executive director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the exhibition will include pieces by Charlie Billingham, Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, Trulee Hall, Edward and Nancy Kienholz, Christine Wang, Marnie Weber, and Summer Wheat. Titled “Brutal Truths,” Ellegood’s section will focus on the many ways in which artists employ satire and caricature to highlight pressing social issues.

Pérez Art Museum Miami Names Director of Curatorial Affairs 
René Morales has been appointed director of curatorial affairs and chief curator of the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Morales has been a curator at the museum since 2005, having organized over 50 exhibitions and overseeing the acquisition of more than 300 artworks to the museum’s permanent collection.

Carpenters Workshop Gallery Names Chief Executive Officer
Carpenters Workshop Gallery, which has locations in New York, London, Paris, and San Francisco, has appointed Maria Bonta de la Pezuela as chief executive officer for its Americas division. De la Pezuela founded a strategic advisory firm that consulted collectors and institutions worldwide. Prior to that she worked at Sotheby’s for almost 20 years in various leadership positions. During her tenure at the auction house, she was instrumental in growing its regional business in North and South America, and spearheaded several record-setting sales, including the first work by Frida Kahlo to surpass $10 million.

Ryan Gander (lower center) is the winner of the fair’s Pommery Prize.

TEDDY WOLFF/COURTESY THE ARMORY SHOW

With the Armory Show in full swing, the New York fair has revealed the winners of three prizes, two of which are being awarded for the first time.

Charlie James Gallery, of Los Angeles, is taking home the Presents Booth Prize, which is given to exhibitors in a section of the fair for emerging galleries. The gallery will receive $10,000 for its booth featuring work by Sadie Barnette, whose pieces at the fair includes the files the FBI kept on her father, the founder of a chapter of the Black Panther Party in California.

Ryan Gander and his gallery, Lisson, of London, New York, and Shanghai, have received the fair’s first-ever Pommery Prize, an award for works in the Platform section, which is devoted to large-scale pieces. They will split its $20,000 purse for presenting his 2019 sculpture Het Spel (My neotonic ovoid contribution to Modernism), a reference to a sculpture by the De Stijl artist George Vantongerloo that Gander has redone using blue fur balls.

Kapwani Kiwanga is the winner of the first Étant donnés Prize, which recognizes a living artist being shown at the fair who is of French nationality or is based in France. Galerie Jérôme Poggi, of Paris, brought the artist’s work to the fair and is now showing it in the Focus section. Kiwanga will receive $10,000.

Robert Morris, Finch College Project, 1969 in the Leo Castelli Booth.

KATHERINE MCMAHON

There’s maybe nothing better to do at an art fair than to observe as other visitors photograph and moon over the work on view. And it’s only fitting that one of the best works on view at the Armory Show this year takes people-watching—and, in another sense, people watching—as its subject.

New York’s Castelli Gallery has devoted its entire booth to a historic Robert Morris piece: a film installation titled Finch College Project from 1969. The booth acts as a memorial to Morris, who died last year at 87, and as a paean to the joy of voyeuristically observing others observe art. It’s one of the must-see works at the show.

Fifty years ago, in 1969, Morris put a film camera on a rotating mount and shot a crew installing a photograph of an audience watching a movie. On an opposite wall, a 28-piece mirror was installed, and it was left to reflect the photo across the room. Morris then took the resulting film and showed it in a darkened room via a rotating projector; on that room’s walls are two grids of 28 globs of mastic (a kind of resin) that once were fixed to the back of the photograph and the facing mirror. (A detail of interest: the piece figured in a 2001 Whitney Museum survey of projected artworks during the 1960s and ’70s.)

Does all that seem confusing? It’s even more so in person, but one can’t help but get swept up in Morris’s self-reflexivity. And what a sensuous piece it is, too—you can still smell the resin, and the whir of the projector fills the room, drowning out inquiries about the work from curious passersby.

About that projector: Castelli Gallery is showing the work using an old-school machine that loops the film on its own. Of course, such a projector is so outdated that there’s always a worry it’ll break down. But fear not—the gallery has brought a two-reel projector in case of emergency. The only problem is that gallery staffers will have to rewind the film manually after its 22-minute run, meaning that they’ll have to watch the film—and visitors to the booth—very carefully.

Overlooking the sixth floor of the 2018 edition of Independent New York.

MAXIMILÍANO DURÓN/ARTNEWS

Keep an eye on this continuously updated list of ARTnews reports from Armory Week 2019 in New York, including talks with artists and dealers about special projects and booths, sales reports and slide shows from the fairs, and more from around town.

The Armory Show
– Armory Survives Pier Pressure: Big Names, Sales on Opening Day
– Margaret Harrison Sends Up Playboy Hugh Hefner at the Armory Show
– Historic Robert Morris Film Installation Enchants at the Armory
– Super Taus Hands Out Trophies
– Armory Show Awards Prizes
– Mark Dion on Running a Lemonade Stand at the Armory Show
– Here’s the Exhibitor List for the 2019 Armory Show

Independent
– Techno, Ostrich Eggs, and Icy Winds: Independent Art Fair Begins
– A Look Around Independent 2019
– Elizabeth Dee on the 10th Anniversary of the Fair
– Here’s the Exhibitor List for Independent New York 2019
– Two Exhibitors Will Foreground Survivors of Nazi Regime

Spring/Break Art Show
– Plagiarism, Trump, and Pompeii: At A Grown-Up Spring/Break Art Show
– A Photo Tour of Spring/Break
– Spring/Break Art Show’s 2019 Edition to Focus on ‘Fact and Fiction’

Volta/Plan B/Art on Paper
– Lines and Coconuts: Art On Paper Fair Opens on New York’s Lower East Side   
– After Cancelation of Volta, Dealers Optimistically Sell Their Wares at Plan B
– Because of Building Issues, Armory Show Will Move Some Exhibitors, Volta Canceled
– In Wake of Volta Cancellation, Exhibitors to Show Work at Zwirner, Art on Paper

The ADAA Art Show (February 28–March 3)
– Amid Sales and Henry Ossawa Tanner Presentation, $30 M. Frida Kahlo Is Available
– A Look Around the 2019 ADAA Art Show in New York
– Here’s the Exhibitor List for the 2019 ADAA Art Show

Pre–Armory Week Coverage
– New Prizes at Armory Show to Be Awarded to French Artist, ‘Platform’ Section Exhibitor
– Armory Public Programs Take on American National Identity, Feminist Provocations
– Armory Show Names Artist List for 2019 Curated ‘Platform’ Section
– Ramiken Gallery Wins Inaugural Gramercy International Prize
– Sally Tallant, Lauren Haynes, and Dan Byers to Curate Sections of 2019 Armory Show
– NADA Cancels 2019 New York Fair
– After Canceling New York Fair, NADA Details 2019 Armory Week Plans
– ADAA Art Show Will Again Open in Late February in New York