For much of the day on Thursday, September 5, a wave of pleasant anticipatory energy, akin to the first day of school, rippled through New York City’s largest art fair, the Armory Show.
Wealthy collectors, art consultants, and other tastefully bejeweled VIPs returning from their summer retreats flooded the Javits Center looking for something to fall in love with (or at least outvalue Bitcoin).
The gallery staff sitting in the booths of their Midtown convention center had reason to be concerned. The top end of the art market has suffered an unexpected downturn, as some collectors have experienced deterred by rising prices. This was reported by auction house Christie’s lower turnover compared to 2022 and prices for works by some younger artists plummeted when they went under the hammer this year.
That uncertainty has unsettled some attendees, but has not put a damper on sales at galleries whose buyers have not resold or offered works at auction in recent months.
“I think if you present yourself as a gallery as a speculative gallery, that’s what will happen to you,” Stefano Di Paolo, partner and senior director at Tribeca’s Anat Ebgi Gallery, told Hyperallergic. “Our artists are not coming to the auction and thinking about long-term institutional placement.”
Still, there was plenty to sell.
Kasmin, a leading gallery in Chelsea, sold Robert Motherwell’s 1980-1984 painting ‘Apse” for $825,000, reportedly a high figure of the day, as did Walton Ford’s 2023 watercolor “The Singer Tract” for $750,000.
Other contemporary artists with large followings outside the art world had little trouble unloading their latest works.
Bronze sculpture by Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei at Tang Contemporary Art reportedly went for $450,000. An Alex Katz portrait by Ann Lauterbach in an edition of 40 went for $21,000 in Düsseldorf Ludorff gallery stand. In the meantime, Bagsa publisher of luxury art books, had sold or reserved 40 of 75 copies of a set of 12 skateboards, individually hand-painted by Julian Schnabel, for $16,000 each. (A Taschen store manager said that if there were any sets left at the end of the fair, they would split them into triptychs for $4,000 each).
Most collectors have been looking for the next big thing, and this year, works by female artists making their Armory debut have been flying off the walls.
At Miles McEnery, lush colorful paintings by artists Emily Weiner and Gabrielle Garland, both new to the gallery, were gone on the first day. Weiner’s abstract works fetched between $7,000 and $14,000, while Garland’s diptych of a modernist interior scene fetched between $30,000 and $35,000. The Night Gallery in Los Angeles sold four brand new paintings by Sarah Miska priced from $16,000 to $48,000, as well as new works by Claire Tabouret, Sarah Awad and Elaine Stocki from $10,000 to $30,000. At James Cohan, a pair of watercolors by Naudline Pierre, whose work was also on view elsewhere, sold for about $12,000 each at the opening of the fair.
Ridgewood-based artist Dana James, exhibiting at the Armory for the first time, was not shocked when two of her paintings in Hollis Taggart were sold to two different collectors, including a first-time buyer. She attributed the interest in her work to her research into the contradictions of beauty present in her painting.
“They both sold, which is great,” she said. “I want the work to be beautiful and attractive, but also ominous and menacing, and that attracts the right person.”
Next door to Berry Campbell, a women’s gallery in Chelsea, co-founder Christine Berry was thrilled to have sold paintings by Nanette Carter ($22,000), Yvonne Thomas ($125,000) and Lynne Drexler ($450,000), who were released from an estate just for show. She promised to sell one of Janice Biala’s abstract expressionist works before the weekend was over.
“We sell consistently all weekend long and we try to bring our best work here,” Berry said. “People know us, so they come to our booth for work that is outstanding, historic, important and next in line.”
Some buyers were intrigued by interesting stories. Tierra Del Sol, a Los Angeles-based gallery that works with artists with developmental disabilities, showed more than a dozen abstract paintings by Michael LeVell, one of its founding artists who is legally blind. LeVell scanned images of Architectural summarythen drew them in pencil before describing his drawings with graphite, colored pencil or marker, sometimes adding mysterious black circles to his compositions.
In a joint presentation by Elizabeth Leach Gallery and Cristin Tierney Gallery, native artist Sara Siestreem learned the craft of basket weaving that taught her Oregon-based Hanis Coos trunk that was once practiced, making several pieces using spruce root, red cedar bark and sedges. The handwoven baskets may only be sold to institutions for educational purposes and not on the open market. That’s why Siestreem 3D printed copies and created cast ceramic sculptures. All three variants were on display at the fair, as well as some abstract panels of her work.
“Weavers in her tribal community were dying out and she revived the tradition by creating a self-sustaining tribal program,” says Daniel Peabody, director of Elizabeth Leach Gallery. “Now there are a hundred weavers in her tribe, while ten years ago there were none.” Now there is one aspect of the art market that is looking a little brighter.
