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This year marks the 100th anniversary of the innovative Armory Show, New York’s traditional art fair. Inaugurated on February 17, 1913, the Armory Show changed the course of American art history, bringing to the public several European artists of the avant-garde of the period, including Marcel Duchamp.
Originally called the International Exhibition of Modern Art, the show took place at the 69th Regiment Armory at the corner of 69th Street and Lexington Avenue, a historic building built in 1904 and which still houses the infantry regiment. The show changed its name to the Armory Show in 1999, and continues today as a substantial space of contemporary art in the city.
The first exhibition sparked numerous controversies. The press branded the nearly 300 artists who presented more than 1,200 works as “degenerate”, “paranoid”, and “insane.” The art was “epileptic” and the show was called a “mental asylum.” Conservative American painter William Merritt Chase derided the famous French painter Matisse as a “charlatan”.
Even US president Theodore Roosevelt wondered why these artists “called Cubists”—referring especially to Picasso—”were not called octagonists, parallelepipedists, or just isosceles triangles”; such was the commotion caused by the perspective of the modernists.
A century later, the reaction to multiple forms of expression is quite different, although there are many doubts about who will be the next Matisse. According to Allison Rodman, the fair’s new executive director of communication, it is important to maintain the tradition of always showing new works and artists and letting their quality speak for itself. This year several organizational changes were made, including the architecture, which was handed to American studio Bade Stageberg Cox.
Among Rodman’s favorites at this year’s show are works presented by the Lisson Gallery, a major London gallery, which brought two wonderful works by the pair Allora & Calzadilla, and offerings from Rod Bianco of Oslo, with Australian artist Bjarne Melgaard and Sverre Bjertnes of Norway.
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While the tradition of promoting new artists continues, this year some galleries have chosen to pay tribute to the last hundred years. This was the case with the traditional house Gagosian, which set up a stand showing works by enfant terrible Andy Warhol.
A highlight is one of his famous self-portraits, Andy Warhol, Camouflage, 1986, which covered an entire wall with camouflage on an 80cm x 80cm tarp. One of his self-portraits reached the price of US$12.3 million dollars, in 2007 at Sotheby’s. Warhol painted several versions of himself, in various colors, making reference to the design pattern used in military uniforms.
Rodman, who studied painting and art history, admits her unfamiliarity with Brazilian contemporary art, but plans to examine the offerings of the country’s galleries at the exhibition.
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