Amory Art Fair Fails to Meet Student’s Expectations

by Michael Telis

Wednesday April 4, 2007

The weekend of February 24th was a whacky one on the West Side of Manhattan. Tens of thousands of people— more than the number that attended the anti-war rally in DC in January— flocked to New York to be a part of the 2007 Amory Art Show— an “International Fair of New Art.”

To begin, much of the art at the Armory couldn’t be considered “new” by a longshot. Andy Warhol, Alex Katz, Tracey Emin, Cindy Sharman, Bill Viola, Ed Ruscha, Jeff Wall, Donald Judd, Bruce Nauman, Louise Bourgeois, Nan Goldin— these are names I can see at MoMA, the Whitney, and the Met. Why, then, are they part of this “new art fair”? The answer? Well, there’s a few.

One can’t help but assume that money and name recognition play a major role. Sure, the Armory is supposed to exhibit all the contemporary artists that you may or may not know (depending on your level of entrenchment in the art world). But why not throw in a few names that everyone knows, just to hype it up more than it already is?

But name recognition only goes so far in a show that occupies two— that’s right, not one, as per a standard Armory show, but two— piers on the Hudson. If you managed to actually walk around the entire show, you were probably on amphetamines. The sheer size of the venue made it frustratingly impossible to see even half the galleries. Even if you saw half the galleries, it would be an exercise in futility to even attempt to take in and critically examine any of the artists they represent. Its like going through every painting at the Met and then walking a few blocks up at the Guggenheim and going through every painting there— it’s simply impossible. The whole charm behind the gallery scene rests in the very fact that galleries are small and can offer you the individualized attention that both you and the work of art require. Any lover of art can tell you that a painting needs at least a few minutes to be considered in all of its depth— take that much time at the Armory and you’ll end up being escorted out for closing time after going through even a few galleries among the hundreds represented from around the world.

Maybe my frustration lies within a broken promise. In 1911, a group of American avant-garde artists formed the Association of American Painters and Sculptors as an alternative body to the hidebound National Academy. Arthur Davies, named president of the group, set out to organize an exhibit that could place European Modernist works side-by-side with America’s avant-garde. The result was the 1913 Armory Show, a groundbreaking event in American art and cultural history. The Armory Show made two promises: to exhibit American and European Modernist painting and sculpture that otherwise may not have been seen by the public, and to allow every submission to hang in the show— no rejections, no exceptions. By doing so, the Association opened its arms to a wave of new artists that may otherwise have gone unnoticed. The show not only opened the eyes of American artists to the vast array of stylistic and aesthetic pursuits of their contemporaries, but it opened up the eyes of the American public to a worldwide avant-garde movement that, for many people, didn’t exist until the Armory.

The Armory wasn’t a place for galleries to sell their name and works. It was a place for Europe’s and America’s new avant-garde artists to gain recognition and to show their works in a venue unlike any other in the world. Now the Armory is purely for show. After all, there is something to be said in watching cabs on W 55th street drive off with enormous, wrapped canvases jutting out of the back. But that was beside the point in 1913, and the Armory has broken a promise. No longer is the show about turning out burgeoning new artists, but about selling a product.

The one thing I can say about the Armory show is this: it certainly is an experience. Sure it’s tedious and frustrating and claustrophobic (yes, even spread out among two piers it feels constricting), but it’s all part of the fun. After all, one can’t deny getting a kick out of watching a teenager with a lip ring and a blue Mohawk study a neon sign that says “SHIT” in bright orange colors side-by-side with an old woman with so much makeup on she could be a clown, or worse, another piece of art in that circus of a show.