The Armory Show 2023: 5 Artworks to Chase Down
The first iteration of The Armory Show (8–10 September 2023) since Frieze announced its acquisition of the New York fair opens at Javits Center this week.
Despite an absence of the four so-called mega-galleries—Gagosian, David Zwirner, Pace Gallery, and Hauser & Wirth—many of the fair's long-time supporters have returned, including London's Victoria Miro and Timothy Taylor, as well as New York mainstays Kasmin and James Cohan.
Ahead of the opening, Ocula Advisors select their favourite works on view.
Kiki Smith, Sentry (2020) at Timothy Taylor
Kiki Smith joins forces with American painter Chris Martin at Timothy Taylor's booth.
Both born in 1954, the two New York-based artists developed their practice in the city's Lower East Side during the 1970s and 80s.
Focusing on their shared understanding of the natural world as a site for transformation, the presentation brings a selection of Smith's recent wall works, sculptures, and paintings.
Among the cast metal sculptures on show, Sentry (2020) particularly stands out for how it embodies Smith's cosmic sensibilities.
Isaac Julien, Echo (Stones Against Diamonds) (2015) at Galeria Nara Roesler
Isaac Julien's inclusion in Nara Roesler's presentation is a firm favourite off the back of his knock-out retrospective at Tate Britain in London over the summer of 2023.
A beautifully curated show, What Freedom is to Me featured his film and installation work from the early 1980s to the present day, documenting the filmmaker's exploration of migration, history, and sexuality.
Echo (Stones Against Diamonds) (2015) is a photograph taken from a research project on Italian-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi. These in-depth investigations into historical personalities are a common angle for the British visual artist, in a bid to review history's official versions through his practice.
The film, Stones Against Diamonds (2015) stemmed from a letter whereby Bo Bardi communicates her preference for semi-precious stones over diamonds.
Adrian Ghenie, Untitled (2023) at Galeria Plan B
Adrian Ghenie has gone from strength to strength since his first solo exhibition with Galeria Plan B in the Romanian city of Cluj back in 2006.
The Berlin gallerist Juerg Judin hosted his second exhibition, familiarising collectors with his work in Zurich. The Romanian artist has since been the subject of major solo exhibitions at Tim Van Laere Gallery, Pace Gallery, and most recently Thaddaeus Ropac in London over Frieze 2022.
Ghenie's work isolates and abstracts particular episodes from the convulsed history of the 20th century and current events to examine how technology in the digital era has impacted the body and human psyche.
'The figures in Adrian Ghenie's recent cycle of paintings are time-travellers: time travels through them, affecting their constitution, their capacity to voice presence or narrate biographical continuity,' curator Mihnea Mircan said, describing the artist's work in 2023.
Tracey Emin, When I was Last in Love! (2012) at Galleria Lorcan O'Neill
A neon sign reading 'When I was Last in Love!' from Emin's much-loved series of neon light text-based sculptures stars in the Rome-based gallery's booth.
Emin began this series in the early 1990s, inspired by her childhood in Margate where neon signs abound. Using her handwriting as the font, the signs feature deeply personal, yet universally relatable phrases, relating the themes of love and desire in her usual unflinchingly honest approach.
Hanging alongside this neon sign is Emin's small acrylic-on-canvas painting, You Held Me in Your Arms (2019).
In November 2023, Lovers Grave (4 November 2023–13 January 2024), a solo exhibition of new paintings by the artist will open at White Cube New York, marking her first solo exhibition in the city in seven years.
Xiyao Wang, Out of Reach No.5 (2023) at Tang Contemporary Art
The year 2023 must have been a whirlwind for the young Berlin-based painter Xiyao Wang.
Wang started the year with a solo at Massimo de Carlo in London, followed by shows at KÖNIG GALERIE Berlin and Perrotin Seoul, and will be opening solos at Tang Contemporary Art Beijing (16 December 2023–28 January 2024) and Perrotin New York (13 January–24 February 2024).
Her lyrical abstractions have caught the attention of many and Tang Contermporary's Armory Show booth provides New Yorkers an overdue taster of what to expect at Perrotin in January.
Gestures are big and free, ultimately guided by her time spent enjoying ballet, tango, kickboxing, and yoga. While the influence of her father, also an abstract painter, kickstarted her time in front of the canvas.
'When I was little, he read me stories about Van Gogh, Monet, and Gauguin before bed and we flicked through his library of catalogues about Western painting and Chinese traditional ink painting. He was my teacher; now I am his,' explains Wang.
