NEW YORK – The Armory Show, New York's biggest art bazaar, has released its exhibitor list for the 2011 edition, boasting 274 contemporary and modern art galleries that this March will occupy the fair's dual piers on the Hudson River in Chelsea.
The announcement prepares for the 13th Armory Show to open in a much-changed art-fair climate. Operated by the Chicago-based Merchandise Mart corporation since 2007, the Armory Show has seen competition from the Art Dealers Association of America fair at the Park Avenue Armory and, since its debut last year, Independent. Next week, the VIP Art Fair will have its inaugural run as the first major online art fair, with many of the world's top blue-chip galleries participating. As a result, several galleries that have appeared at the Armory Show in previous years are faced with an array of choices, and several will be taking their wares elsewhere.
Independent, for instance, counts among its participants this year six that did the Armory in 2010 and will not be returning: New York's Jack Hanley Gallery, Harris Lieberman, Wallspace, and Elizabeth Dee Gallery (run by a co-founder of Independent); Herald Street of London; Tanya Leighton and Johann König of Berlin; and Glasgow's Modern Institute. Two galleries, Gavin Brown's Enterprise and Anton Kern, had a booth at the Armory Show in 2009, didn't participate in a fair in 2010, and now will appear at Independent — suggesting the gallery waited to see how the fledgling fair did in its first year before committing. Then, New York galleries Bortolomi and Andrew Kreps and Berlin's Galerie Ben Kaufmann are keeping stands in both the Armory Show and Independent.
Major New York dealerships the Pace Gallery and David Zwirner, meanwhile, have this year opted to exhibit at the ADAA fair and not the Armory.
This year the Armory Show will have a Latin American focus, with Mexico's Gabriel Kuri as its commissioned artist.
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