With the stars and stripes sailing in the wind against the cloudless sky, a proud and powerful symbol high atop the venue for one of the largest art fairs in the world, the 14th edition of Armory Show is showing no fear from its looming competitor, as the first New York showcase of British fair mongers Frieze are threatening to impose their dominance in May. This year the Armory fair revived its old image when totally redesigning their long time venues Pier 92 & 94 and decreased their number of exhibitors (228 instead of 274 in 2011) that include Focus: Nordic bringing in a touch of Scandinavia. Armory 2012 has reported a huge turn up of visitors (more than 60,000) and many galleries had impressive sales results. Same as usual then? NY contributor Sebastian Kaempf visited the fair to bring M-KOS readers a visual sampler of the action on site.
German artist Michael Reidel’s solo presentation at David Zwirner’s booth. All his work was sold out within 30 minutes of VIP preview.
Cindy Sherman’s 1978 Untitles film Still with the reflection of Jenny Holzer’s work at Sprüth Mager. Sherman’s work was sold for undisclosed price = a lot of money.
Jota Castro “Buscando Americas” at Gonzalez y Gonzalez, Santiago.
Work by Jota Castro at Gonzalez y Gonzalez, Santiago
Installation View at Ratio 3, San Francisco
Jonathan Seliger “Golden Pavillion” 2012 at Jack Shainman Gallery, NY
Installation view by Ai Weiwei at Haines Gallery, San Francisco
Peter Riversidge “Wooden Mail Objects” 2011 at Sean Kelly Gallery, NY. The work was installed as the artist proposed in the letter below sent to the gallery.
Nicole Elsenman “Taylor” 2009 (left) and Toni Matelli “Stray Dog†at Leo Koenig Inc., NY
Gimhongsok “Canine Construction†(2009) at Kukje Gallery, Seoul
Mahomi Kunikata “Two Sisters in One Body 3D” 2009 at Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo/Taipei.
A living performer reenacted Marina Abramovic’s “Bed for Human Use†(2012) at Luciana Brito Galeria, São Paulo
David Haines “Self Portrait with Adidas Veil” 2011 at Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam
Wang Du “Image absolue” 2011 at Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris
Installation view at Ambach & Rice, Los Angeles
Installation view, Stephan Balkenhol and Thomas Ruff “Portrait (A Zeitler B)” 1998 at Mai 36 Galerie, Zürich.
Allan McCollum “Collection of Sixty Drawings” 1988/91; “Perfect Vehicle” 1988/2004 at JGM. Galerie, Paris
Installation view by Tomaso De Luca at Monitor, Rome
Work by Nathaniel Rackowe, at Bischoff/Weiss, London
Julian Opie “Imagine You Are Driving, (sculpture 4)” 1993 at Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zürich
Continued to part 2
Credit: All the photos by Sebastian Kaempf