The Armory Show
You want to start with the Big Papi of the fairs, and that’s obviously The Armory Show. Housing a vast range of big name galleries and also not so well known ones (unless, of course, you are really into this art thing), the fair is divided in two sections: Modern & Contemporary, on Pier 92 and Pier 94 respectively.
In their Contemporary section, the fair only features two Latin American galleries, both from Brazil (Galeria Nara Roesler and Luciana Brito Galeria). Kinda sad that number is so low, I know. With that said, you can still check some good Latino artists at the US-based galleries, like Angel Otero (Boricua de pura cepa) representing the Caribbean and the rest of Latin America at Kavi Gupta’s gallery booth. You can’t miss this beautiful piece of work.
It’s also good to highlight that this year’s Armory Focus on Pier 94 is based on artists/galleries from the Middle East, North Africa, and Mediterranean regions called MENAM (por sus siglas en Inglés). This is a great way to boost the image of the art scene there. Very needed these days.
The lack of Latino galleries on the Contemporary side of the Armory is somewhat made up for by the presence of three of them in the Modern Section (Pier 92): Brazil’s Galeria Raquel Arnaud and Galeria Bergamin; and NYC’s own Cecilia De Torres, LTD. The latter features the likes of Joaquin Torres-García, Elias Crespin, León Ferrari (four thumbs up here), Marta Chilindron, Lidya Buzo, Inés Bancalari and Gonzalo Fonseca (and this isn’t even the whole roster).
One thing that really caught my attention, was Robert Longo’s too-close-to-real charcoal drawing mounted on paper of St Louis Ram Wide Receiver Kenny Britt in the infamous “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” pose, in protest of the shooting of Ferguson’s Michael Brown by a police officer back in August, 2014.
This is definitely a must-see and the probably the best thing I’ve seen so far in the fair (this is located at Metro Pictures booth).
March 5-8
Piers 92 & 94
New York City