The Armory Show 2025

The fair has its origins in the Gramercy International Art Fair, founded in 1994 by New York art dealers Colin de Land, Pat Hearn, Matthew Marks, and Paul Morris, that took place at rented rooms in the Gramercy Park Hotel. Moving out of the hotel in 1999, the fair was renamed ‘The Armory Show’ in a nod to the 1913 exhibition by the same name, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, that had showcased European avartgarde art previously unseen in the United States.

In spirit of the fair’s forward-thinking namesake, The Armory Show provides an expansive platform for the galleries to present works by pioneering contemporary and modern artists. The Presents Section, launched in 2014, invites emerging galleries to show recent works by young generations of artists.

The enrichment of curatorial practice is a key objective of The Armory Show, which it establishes by inviting curators to organise sections of the fair, such as Platform and Focus, and to participate in the annual Curatorial Leadership Summit (CLS). This invitation-only programme gathers curators and museum directors around the world for a thoughtful deliberation of the latest concerns in the international curatorial community, and culminates in a public keynote presentation.

Also central to The Armory Show is its dedication to New York’s cultural landscape. The fair’s partners include major cultural institutions and non-profit organisations across the city, including Americas Society; The Bronx Museum of the Arts; Dieu Donné; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Museum of Art, New York; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; The Whitney Museum of American Art; and Public Art Fund.