Philippe Parreno, Danny La Rue,  H {N)Y P N(Y} OSIS

The Park Avenue Armory has opened its doors this summer to Paris-based artist Philippe Parreno’s largest U.S. installation to date, H {N)Y P N(Y} OSIS, a symphony of events unfolding in scripted and random sequences that constantly blend and transform in shape and context, tuning the entire space as a series of interlocking events.  Sharing authorship, Parreno avidly collaborates with performance artist Tino Sehgal, artist Pierre Hughye and pianist Mikhail Ruby, giving Parreno the role of both artist and director.  (more…)

The Park Avenue Armory will extend its annual residency program this year, dedicating 10 rooms on its second floor to a group of artists including New Yorker writer Sasha Frere-Jones, percussionist Ulysses Owens, Jr., dancers  Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey, and artist/choreographer Jason Akira Somma, among others.  “We are thrilled to be able to expand our program and to dedicate our entire second floor to our Artist-in- Residence program, allowing artists working in such a rich variety of genres, and at different points in their career, to explore and present new ideas,” says President and Executive Producer Rebecca Robertson.  (more…)

Kazuo Shiraga, via Art Observed

As dealers wrap their final sales today, and begin wrapping up their works for the trip home, the bustle of Armory Week is drawing to a close in NewYork City.  Strong sales seemed to be the theme of the week, with galleries across the board reporting impressive figures and percentages for their fair offerings, with some galleries selling out of their full selection of pieces before the fair closed the doors on its VIP preview on March 5th.

Xu Qu, via Art Observed (more…)

Outside the 2014 Armory Show, via Art Observed

The doors of The Armory Show opened this morning for its VIP preview, welcoming collectors and press from around the world to Piers 92 and 94 on Manhattan’s West Side.  This year, the fair welcomes 205 galleries to its annual selling event, down again from last year’s 214 in what seems to be a running trend to trim the fat at the larger fairs worldwide.

Armory Show (Installation View), via Art Observed (more…)

The New York Times profiles the work and career of Xu Zhen, this year’s artist-in-residence at The Armory Show in New York.  A conceptualist noted for his departure from previous generations of Chinese art and his playful skewering of retail economics (including one work where he constructed a fully functioning supermarket), Xu will show a number of works at the show, and is working on a public project with New York’s Citibike Public Bicycle Program. (more…)

Marina Abramović’s opera, The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, is set to open this December 12th in The Park Armory’s spacious Drill Hall.  Staged by Robert Wilson, the show includes performances by Abramović, playing herself and her mother, and also features performances by Willem Dafoe and Antony.  The show has already garnered an overwhelmingly positive critical response at each of its previous performances, and marks the first time the work will be performed int he US. (more…)

The 2014 edition of the Armory Show has announced its commissioned artist for the fair, welcoming Chinese “chameleon of concept” Xu Zhen to exhibit work throughout the fair’s grounds.  The announcement comes as part of the fair’s Focus: China section.  “I am very honored to be named the The Armory Show 2014 Commissioned Artist. The fair offers an strong platform for exchange, and for dialogue around art, the market and its many interrelated institutions and ideas,” the artist says. (more…)

Paul McCarthy’s WS has become the Park Avenue Armory’s second most well-attended show at the venue’s history, having already drawn 11,000 visitors since its opening last month.  The work, already gaining major press for its challenging subject matter, runs until August 4th.  “There’s a much narrower potential audience for this than for most things we’ve done before,” says Armory President Rebecca Robertson, “so I think the attendance we’re seeing is very strong.” (more…)

It was 100 years ago this week that the first Armory Show brought the avant-garde of Europe to the United States, turning conceptions of painting and art-making on its ear.  Lasting only four weeks, the show offered American art-goers some of the first glimpses of work by Picasso, Edvard Munch, Duchamp, and many more.   (more…)

In his largest U.S. exhibition to date, Los Angeles-based artist Paul McCarthy will present a re-imagining of Snow White at the Park Avenue Armory this summer as part of the institution’s 2013 season.  The season also includes a staging of Marina Abramovic’s opera, and a performance of Stockhausen’s “Licht,” with a moonscape designed by Rirkrit Tiravanija.  According to Rebecca Robertson, the armory’s president and executive producer, the varied calendar of works is intended to “blur the line between high art and popular culture” and “ask tough questions about the world in which we live.” (more…)

James Shaeffer at Reference Art from Richmond, Virginia.  All photos on site for Art Observed by Elene Damenia.

The second iteration of the Dependent Art Fair took place on the Saturday afternoon of Armory week, alongside several satellite fairs—including the Independent Art Fair. Dependent organizer Rose Marcus gathered 20 galleries in the Lower East Side Comfort Inn hotel, offering the two night stay for a fair fee of $400. The DIY, tongue-in-cheek fair is geared toward community and dialogue amongst its participating galleries and artists, seeking a sort of humorous—yet rigorous—elegance, leaving the intense marketing focus of other fairs to the back seat. Up and down the six occupied floors (floors 3–8, with a smoking deck on 6), visitors squeezed through the hallways and into the individual hotel rooms to see a variety of contemporary painting, sculpture, video, and installations, including a bed-ridden mini Kawasaki motorcycle at Reference Art, or made-to-order rum-fruit smoothies at Roberto Paradise.

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Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild at Galerie Sho Booth, Pier 92

On the third and final day of the Armory Show 2012 both spirits and sales were high amongst the 228 exhibitors. Besides the notable success of David Zwirner’s solo booth by Michael Riedel, which sold out entirely in the first 30 minutes of the fair, many of the other galleries also benefited from the sales of their high-ticket items throughout the three-day exhibition. Art Observed spoke with representatives from various exhibitors including the Susan Sheehan Gallery, Spanierman Modern, Meredith Ward Fine Art, Art in General, Sprüth Magers, and the Gary Snyder Gallery. (more…)