At the Armory Show’s VIP Day, Cautious Optimism Spreads as Sales Arrive

It is unclear what to expect for this year’s Armory show Thursday morning. But by 11 a.m., it was the first bell of Thursday’s VIP preview, with the title extending the length of the glass atrium in the center of Javits. For nearly an hour, these lines never relax, as attendees, slumped inside in outfits ranging from traditional blue blazers and flowing dresses to full-breast fashion outfits.

Turnout is a welcome sign for the art market after a shaky spring was replaced by gallery shutdowns, lawsuits and fairly cancelled summer spring. However, on Thursday, the mood was cautiously optimistic. No dealers claim the best VIP day of their career, but many tell Artnews The slower speed matches severe interest.

“Yes, the market slowed down, but there was still hunger there,” David Blum, director of Peter Blum Gallery, told The Peter Blum Gallery Artnews. “After all, we’re in New York City.”

The gallery’s speeches are elegant and understated, anchored by recent and historic Alex Katz’s work. Its core – the most expensive work Artnews Found at the expo is a quiet 1962 oil painting. October 2on an untrimmed bed under the large window. Last seen in Guggenheim’s 2022 retrospective, the work was listed at $1.2 million. By the end of Thursday, the painting was still available, although Blum said a third of the booths – including works by Nicholas Galanin, Erik Lindman and Martha Tuttle, for a value of $16,000, have been sold.

By the end of the day, the highest reported sales were written by Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, which said it moved a piece for $1 million, though no one was specified. Meanwhile, Sean Kelly reported selling Kehinde Wiley paintings for $265,000; James Cohan reported selling Kennedy Yanke sculptures for $150,000; and Don Contemporaries said it sold AI Weewei “toilet paper” sculptures for $150,000 to $180,000.

That’s the background, because the aisle starts to be filled with collectors, but also with institutional figures. Among those who found out were Don and Mela Rubel, Pamela and David Honik, Peter and Jill Kraus, Beth Rudin Deewood, Komar Shah and Jair Moon. Institutional terms, there are Director Harlem’s studio museum and chief curator Thelma Golden, Phoenix Museum Director Olga Viso, Whitney Museum Director Scott Rothkopf, High Line Art Arigration Director Cecilia Alemani and Pérez Arter Museum Museum Museum Director Director Franklin Sirmans, among others.

Their presence is enough to cheer up Natalie Kates, co-founder of Kates-Ferri Projects, noting that she has undergone a huge shift from last year’s unshared as she greets her corner booth in gifts, part of a burgeoning gallery under 10. She told me, “This year, everyone texted me.” Artnews. “They are here, so I’m excited. Will this translate into sales? I don’t know yet.”

There is also Tribeca dealer Rob Dimin in the gift section, he told Artnews His philosophy for this year’s speech was: “Keep it simple, stupid.” For Dimin, that means hanging only three large-scale paintings by Hudson Valley artist Emily Coan, all of her “spider silk” series that pairs lush and lyrical forest scenes with underwear-like women. By noon, Dimin sold five paintings (two paintings (in the fall room of the booth) for between $8,500 and $40,000. “I’m not going to rewrite the system,” Dimin said.

Although this year’s fair is technically the second fair directed by Kyla McMillan, she joined the Armory two months before last year’s edition. This makes this year the first to fully reflect her vision, which so far means overhauling the floor plan and emphasizing the structure of the selected programs. The selected focus section was moved to the front of the fair, highlighting artists from the southern United States this year. It is organized by Jessica Bell Brown, executive director of the VCU Institute of Contemporary Art, Richmond. The platform presents large-scale installations and sculptures, located in the middle of the floor and is curated by Raina Lampkins-Fielder, a deep nonprofit soul. There is also a special solo format in the ordinary gallery booth, as well as five large works under the banner of “New York Sculpture”.

There are 230 galleries in total at the fair. More than a handful of major players – they were in their Andrew Kreps and Esther Sper Artnews As an “interruption”. She added that bringing these galleries back was a top priority. Apart from the improved program, her stadium is simple: the Armory still has over 60,000 attendees each year.

“Even if you had a sensational show in New York, it didn’t reach that goal,” she said. That scale, and the mixing of serious collectors with people who “don’t even call themselves collectors” is what convinced some bigger names to rejoin.

The biggest coup was the return of the White Cube, which had not been performed in the Armory for more than a decade. Count Count is the London Gallery (now owns space in New York, Hong Kong, Seoul and Paris), the first upper-level market to participate in since 2022 by David Zwirner.

“We know her very well – and start the conversation – she has some great ideas to make the fair.”

The gallery brought a personal speech based on the New York-born duo Tarwuk, whose practice reflects their growth during the Yugoslav War in the 1990s. The paintings cost between $65,000 and $100,000, mainly sold on Thursday afternoon, with only $10,000 on paper and sculptures ranging from $15,000 to $30,000.

McMillan’s biggest influence is probably in the gallery of newbies. The fifty-fifth participation accounted for about one-quarter of the entire exhibitor list.

Massey Klein of Chinatown is among them. Co-founder Garrett Klein told Artnews He and his co-founder Ryan Massey believe that the “financial risk” of conducting the Armory this year comes after the first successful navigation of New York in May and several institutional contacts. He said Thursday night the gallery sold it to a novice collector for more than $13,500 with the largest work in Kate McQuillen’s personal speech.

“The guards have changed a little bit,” Klein said of the influx of new exhibitors. “We feel we have to take advantage of that. We think it’s our opportunity. Let’s do it.”

Similarly, this year’s debut was the focus section of Martha in Austin, which included a set of paintings from RF. Alvarez blends Southern machismo with queer life. Prices range from $4,500 to $20,000, except at the end of the day, all prices are sold. “We’re going to have more stuff in a few weeks and then sell it to the waitlist,” Martha’s co-founder Ricky Morales told the waitlist. Artnewssmiled and pointed out that due to a shoulder injury, the artist had to stop painting before the expo.

The main part seems to be divided between the seller’s pragmatism and the focus on institutional acquisitions.

London blue chip Victoria Miro en plein air Portraits of Doron Langberg are produced in Fire Island and Israel. The works totaled $41 and cost between $22,000 and $35,000; director Glenn Scott Wright noted that both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum have recently been acquired by Lamberg. Another part of Miro’s sprawling stall is the more traditional heist bags of the gallery show, which include works by Hernan Bas, María Berrío, secundinohernández, kudzanai-Violet-Violet Hwami, Yayoi Kusama and Flora Yukhnovich.

Chelsea’s Garth Greenan, likewise, took the cross-section of his plan from Rosalyn Drexler, who was 98 on Wednesday, went to Gladys Nilsson to review next summer at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. At the heart of the presentation is one of Cannupa Hanska Luger’s “Social Suits” designed to protect indigenous space travelers, the last time at the Hammer Museum “Breathe (E): Moving toward Climate and Social Justice”. That job, Góodexlisted for $175,000; a large-scale hole assault by Howardena Pindell, Untitled #20 (MASA: Lavender Lotus)available for $875,000. Although assistant director Julian Corbett told Artnews Both have “a lot of interests.”

On the other side of the floor is Chicago’s Secretary | Beach centered his booth on the stage of Jacqueline Surdell, who announced his representation in August, to feature a 1,200-pound braided wall sculpture. The price for a job is $300,000, Suddenly, she bent over and was furious (after Giotto)references to early Renaissance religious paintings and built in the gallery within three months of 2024. Smaller works in speeches range from $12,000 to $50,000.

London’s Saatchi Yates made his debut in the Armory with a solo speech by Tesfaye Urgessa, who represented Ethiopia at the 2024 Venice Biennale. Large-scale paintings range from $135,000 to $200,000, and at the high end of the gallery, it mainly supports emerging artists. Smaller projects cost between $7,000 and $25,000. Director Alison Ball told Artnews She longs to bring his work to an institutional audience in New York.

“I’ve been doing acquisitions at the Brooklyn Museum for six months and once confirmed, I think, it seems like New York likes Tesla Fay,” Ball said. “It feels like the right city and the right moment.”

Devan Patel, co-founder of Toronto’s Patel Brown, also cites institutional momentum as part of his reasoning that a series of large hand-printed Linocuts were brought to the traditional Japanese Tosa Washi Paper on Canadian Japanese artist Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka. The Wellyn Museum and the Dallas Museum of Art at Hamilton College have both recently acquired works by Hatanaka, where she will open a show at the Canadian Embassy in Japan later this month.

The outstanding performance in the booth is Reflectiona 12-foot-long stretched wooden beam, specially made for the size of the booth. “More and more, we are customizing speeches for booths and fairs,” Patel said. Patel’s gallery usually attends 10 to 12 fairs a year. Patel said that while the price is $36,000, it has not been sold yet, but six people are for sale, ranging from $5,800 to $15,000.

But the most inspiring business strategy may come from a joint speech by David Nolan and Marc Selwyn. The stall lined the walls with works on paper, titled Code and Current, from Andy Warhol to Robert Mapplethorpe. Prices range from $5,000 to $100,000, and each work is marked with the sticky label of the artist’s name and year. In theory, this has led to less than a month’s rent for working with Philip Guston in Manhattan.

Today, most buyers want a name they can stand. Usually very simple.