There are as many events around Armory Arts Week as there are exhibitors at the fairs. Searching for the liveliest things to do takes endless hours, so Art Digest has done it for you. From talks and performances to openings and parties, we’ve curated a list of events for each day of this busy week to feel as if you have the ground covered.
March 2
The artist discusses her sculptural project Desire Lines, a Public Art Fund exhibition, opening March 3 at Doris C. Freedman Plaza and her show of related studies for the project at Gagosian Gallery (821 Park Avenue), also opening March 3 from 6 to 8 pm.
The artists talk about their contributions to Beautiful Beast, a sculpture show that explores the relationship between beauty and abjection through the lens of the grotesque.
California-based artist Mary Weatherford and Katy Siegel, chief curator of the Hunter College Galleries, discuss Weatherford’s standout work in the MoMA exhibition The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World.
March 3
This renegade art show explores concepts of exchange in a variety of creative forms by showcasing 90 independent curators and 400 artists on 3 floors of vacant offices in the historic and decaying James A. Farley Post Office.
The 27th annual edition of the Art Dealers Association of America’s intimate not-for-profit exposition of 72 of its member galleries features solo and thematic booth presentations, including special presentations of Tracey Emin, Nam June Paik, and Lorna Simpson, through March 8. Proceeds from the preview party benefit social-service agency Henry Street Settlement.
Gagosian Gallery collaborates with Galerie Patrick Seguin to bring together two titans of 20th century art and design — American artist John Chamberlain and French architect and designer Jean Prouvé — who challenged the use of steel, each in their own innovative way.
The first exhibition to bring together all nine of the artist’s iconic fashion photographs of appropriated advertising imagery that question ideas of authorship, originality, and authenticity.
March 4
Straddling two piers with Contemporary and Modern wings, the Armory Show roars back to attention with this year’s focus on the artists of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean (MENAM) region with Beirut- and London-based artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan creating an on-site project for the fair, which extends through March 8.
Celebrated artist Zhang Huan directs and creates set designs with a Chinese twist for George Frideric Handel’s sublime operatic adaptation of the erotic Greek myth.
This benefit party with live music by acclaimed singer Kelela and DJs Ezra Koenig (from the band Vampire Weekend), E*vax (from the band Ratatat), and DJ Business Class (the 2015 Armory Show Commissioned Artist, Lawrence Abu Hamdan) heralds the opening of The Armory Show and Armory Arts Week.
March 5
Moving from SoHo to a pier on the Hudson River, the one-time satellite upstart takes its proper place as a solid sister of the Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc-owned Armory Show, allowing visitors dual access to both fairs through March 8. Volta NY distinguishes itself as an invitational affair of curated, single-artist gallery booths.
On the way to Brooklyn check out the inaugural edition of this fair that seeks to push conventional notions of what works on paper are. Suspended cut-outs and paper airplanes hang alongside large-scale drawing by author Dave Eggers, who was classically trained in representational methods. Through March 8.
Housed in the former home of the Dia Art Foundation, the five-year-old fair that claims not to be a fair, but a collection of gallery and non-profit organisation projects, flaunts offerings from venues such as Berlin’s Sprüth Magers, David Kordansky Gallery and The Box of Los Angeles, and Copenhagen’s Christian Andersen, through March 8.
This seminal exhibition of American artist Keith Haring features five monumental works on canvas from 1984-85 that expose a lesser-known side of the iconic artist.
Considered one of China’s outstanding contemporary portraitists, Mao Yan makes his US solo debut in this exhibition of 14 new paintings.
March 6
Highlights include works by Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Jim Nutt, Chris Burden, and Jason Rhodes in this sale of paintings, drawings, and sculptures by blue-chip artists alongside top works by contemporary stars.
Scope celebrates its 15th year in New York with an open design plan, shirking unique booths and allowing various presentations of the 60 assembled galleries to flow into one another.
New York Cultural Affairs Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl makes a keynote speech that addresses the city’s newly launched cultural diversity initiative at the Art Show.
Moderated by art historian Claudia Calirman, this VOLTA Salon talk about Cuba’s current art scene features art historian Elvis Fuentes, Bronx Museum executive director Holly Block, and Gabriela Rangel, Visual Arts director of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas.
Created by Saul Anton and Ethan Spigland, this exhibition of established and emerging artists explores ideas of destruction as part of the creative process at Williamsburg’s edgiest art space.
An after-hours private viewing of current exhibitions, including On Kawara: Silence and The Hugo Boss Prize 2014: Paul Chan, Nonprojections for New Lovers. The live music set is by Brooklyn-based DJ Dr. Unos and Dubs.
March 7
Curated by the Guggenheim Foundation’s Fawz Kabra, this two-day symposium (March 7 and 8) provides insight into the rapidly developing contemporary art scenes of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean (MENAM).
Take a guided tour of Kehinde Wiley’s first museum retrospective, which mixes references to hip-hop with Old Masters portraiture to investigate race, power and the politics of representation.
MoMA painting and sculpture curator Laura Hoptman, Nancy Graves Foundation Director Christina Hunter, author and critic Christopher Lyon, and artist Jessica Stockholder discuss the life and work of Nancy Graves on the final day of a striking show commemorating the 20th anniversary of the artist’s death.
One of the interactive programs of the New Museum 2015 Triennial: Surround Audience, Chus Martínez, curator and Head of the Institute of Art at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel talks about the transformation of life through physical and mental ingestion — from diets to procrastination — and explores how such metabolic processes could potentially inform the future of art in front of The Island (Ken) (2015), by artist collective DIS.
Buzzed about curator Piper Marshall resurrects You the Better, Ericka Beckman’s seminal 1983 film based on games of chance, in which the players — including artist Ashley Bickerton — can never win.
March 8
Controversial performance Ann Liv Young breathes new life into her psychological character Sherry in new work at New York’s home of the avant-garde.
Leslie Hewitt and Hank Willis Thomas talk about beauty and advertising in relation to their works on view in the exhibition
Speaking of People: Ebony, Jet and Contemporary Art.
Catch Performa director RoseLee Goldberg and artist and founder of Pioneer Works, Dustin Yellin discuss the impact of performance on contemporary art; view the exhibition Tongue Stones, featuring a selection of emerging artists; visit open studios; and listen to live performances by French virtuoso guitarist Stephane Wembel, who scored the theme song to Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, and California’s No.1 Mexican brass band BandaDeLosMuertos. It’s all part of the monthly ramble through Pioneer Works, a non-profit centre for art and innovation.