The Armory Show

What to look out for at Independent New York, NADA, The Armory Show this week, Mar 2 – 6

2 March 2017

There are a number of fairs happening in New York this week, including Independent New YorkNADA NY, and The Armory Show, running from March 2 to 6.

Outside of that there are some other things running concurrently, including Art Basel-begun and “rigorously curated, boutique event” VOLTA NY, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, and Paul Kneale + Toby Ziegler’s After Image at Cassina Projects, which started on February 28 and is running to April 15.

Below are some artists and exhibitors to look out for, if you’re headed to any, or all of the main events: 

Independent New York @ Spring Studios Tribeca

For Independent New York, there’s a group presentation at New York’s 315 Gallery, with Amy Brener, Henry Lucien Barrett, and Cecilia Salama among them, as well as booth featuring Hal Fischer, Juliana Huxtable and DIS at London’s Project Native InformantKelly Akashi and Neïl Beloufa are a couple of the artists showing with Los Angeles’ Ghebaly Gallery, and Darja Bajagić features at London’s Carlos/Ishikawa

Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Martos Gallery and C L E A R I N G are also showing, while Los Angeles’ Freedman Fitzpatrick has a number from its typically excellent artist roster, including Mathis Altmann, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, Tobias Madison, Das Institut & Allison Katz, Lucie Stahl, Shimabuku, Hannah Weinberger and more. 

NADA NY @ Skylight Clarkson North

At NADA New York there’ll be a solo presentation by Jacolby Satterwhite at Los Angeles’ Moran Bondaroff, Siebren Versteeg at bitforms, as well as Signal in New York, and Moscow-based video art collective AES+F presented by New York’s Transfer Gallery in collaboration with Bucharest’s Mobius Gallery. 

Other booths to take note of include Toronto’s Cooper Cole, San Francisco’s Capital Gallery and  Et Al.ltd los angeles and Night Gallery, as well as Guatemala’s Proyectos Ultravioleta, Brussels’ Super Dakota, and Ed. Varie.

The Armory Show @Piers 92 & 94

Meanwhile, The Armory Show will have Joshua Citarella and Evan Roth from London’s Carroll/Fletcher, Recycle Group from Suzanne Tarasieve,  Jo-ey Tang and Carlos Reyes at Galerie Joseph Tang from Paris, as well as Nevine Mahmoud for M+B, Los Angeles.

Also presenting artists are Honor Fraser, The Breeder, Various Small Fires, Arratia Beer, Bodega, Arcade, Nicodim Gallery, Galerie Sultana and more.**

Independent New York, NADA, and The Armory Show are on concurrently in New York, running March 2 to 6, 2017.

Jo-ey Tang, Like An Intruder, The Speaker Removes His Cap (2014). Installation view. (2014). Photo by Ana Drittani. Courtesy Galerie Joseph Tang, Paris.
  share news item

Art Fairs in New York, March 3 – 6

4 March 2016

New York plays host to two large art fairs this weekend, Independent New York and The Armory Show with other smaller fairs happening around them at the same time, opening March 3 and running to March 6.

Independent New York invites over 40 galleries worldwide such as Project Native Informant and is held in Spring Studios, while Armory hosts over 100.

Booths and works on show during the weekend that aqnb recommendations as follows:

Ed Fornieles @ London’s Carlos Ishikawa (Armory)

Lorna Mills‘ animated GIF, ‘Mountain Light/Time’, with Transfer Gallery (Moving Image Fair)  

Sorry Archive‘s group show, No Gains on Sacrifice (SPRING/BREAK Art Show)

Brenna Murphy @ American Medium (VOLTA NY)

Maria Hassabi @ The Breeder (Armory)

Petra Cortright, Josh Kolbo & Kaspar Müller Société (Independent) 

See the respective websites (above) for details.**

Ed Fornieles, Modern Family (2014). Installation view. Commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery. Photo by Andy Keate. Courtesy Carlos/Ishikawa, London.
Ed Fornieles, Modern Family (2014). Installation view. Commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery. Photo by Andy Keate. Courtesy Carlos/Ishikawa, London.
  share news item

Events + Exhibitions, Mar 2 – 8

4 March 2015

This week, beginning March 2, New York City is playing host to The Armory Show and Independent NY, with galleries like Société, EOA.Projects, C L E A R I N G and Real Fine Arts exhibiting at one or both. Peripherally, White Flag Projects is running its inaugural publication event Issues featuring locally undistributed art periodicals including Bidoun, BOMB, Mousse and The Happy Hypocrite plus more. There are also openings at Mathew NYC, Artemisa and Room East.

Berlin Feminist Film Week begins in the German city, as well as a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon and London Calling night featuring female:pressure and Creamcake. Fabian Schoneich and Samuel Leuenberger are curating an exhibition in Zürich and Schöner Wohnen is showing with AirBNB in Milan. Sophie Jung has another exhibition at Temnikova & Kasela in Tallin and Jenna Sutela and Marti Kalliala have an open studio including work by Tuomas Toivonen, Nene Tsuboi and Jaakko Pallasvuo in Helsinki. The third and final iteration of Uffe Isolotto’s graphic novel about tragic Diff’rent Strokes star Dana Plato is on at TOVES in Copenhagen.

In London, Evan Roth is showing at Carroll / Fletcher and the first in a series of events for JK_NET’s residency at Project/Number starts with a Twerk talk by Fannie Sosa and lab by Joelle D’Fontaine. There’s also an exhibtion by @gaybar‘s Hannah Quinlan Anderson and Rosie Hastings at Arcadia Missa called Tifkas and Ravioli Me Away is playing a show on Friday.

There’s more so see below:

EVENTS

Giant Step publication launch @ Flat Time House, Mar 3

Enter the Cybercattle @ Thomas Dane Gallery, Mar 3

Schöner Wohnen After Party @ TOM., Mar 3

Huw Lemmey @ RCA, Mar 5

The Armory Show 2015, Mar 5 – 8

Independent NY, Mar 5 – 8

WE WANT A FUTURE THAT OUTLIVES OUR PAST @ Taylor Square Toilet Block, Mar 5

Feel the Discourse! @ Guest Projects, Mar 5

Martti Kalliala + Jenna Sutela @ HIAP, Mar 5

Social Choreography… @ Tenderpixel, Mar 5 – 7

London Calling @ SchwuZ,  Mar 6

Berlin Feminist Film Week, Mar 6 – 13

Uffe Isolotto @ TOVES, Mar 6

Daniel Swan / The Games @ Berger Gray, Mar 6

Issues @ White Flag Projects, Mar 6 – 8

400 years of Black Female Resistance Leaders @ BFI, Mar 6

Yoneda Lemma + |end| @ V4ULT, Mar 6

Re-Materialising Feminism Book Launch @ Arcadia Missa, Mar 7

2015 Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon @ Sonntagsclub e.V., Mar 7

Anne de Boer & Eloïse Bonneviot @ DRAF, Mar 7

ANA_CON @ Project/Number, Mar 7

Ben Rivers + Stephen Sutcliffe @ The Bioscope Independent Cinema, Mar 7

Kiosk Independent Publishers Fair I @ The Peckham Pelican, Mar 7

Women. Wikipedia. Design. @ SIBLING, Mar 8

AN ENDLESS CIGARETTE screening @ Astra Filmtheater, Mar 8

OPENINGS


Sophie Jung @ Temnikova & Kasela, Mar 3 – May 3

Schöner Wohnen @ AirBNB Pavilion, Mar 3 – 29

CLASSICICITY @ Breese Little, Mar 4 – Apr 2

Sterling Crispin @ Channel Normal, Mar 4 – 25

X is Y @ Sandy Brown, Mar 5 – Apr 18

Anicka Yi @ The Kitchen, Mar 5 – Apr 11

Hannah Quinlan Anderson + Rosie Hastings @ Arcadia Missa, Mar 5 – Apr 4

Evan Roth @ Carroll / Fletcher, Mar 5 – Apr 11

Emily Jones @ Cosmo Carl, Mar 6

Olga Balema + Anne de Vries @ Michael Thibault, Mar 8

Georgia Sagri @ Mathew NYC, Mar 8 – 22

Sebastian Lloyd Rees @ Room East, Mar 5

V @ Artemisa Gallery, Mar 5 – Apr 5

Ravioli Me Away @ Montague Arms, Mar 6

M’m! M’m! Good! @ Rowing, Mar 6 – Apr 18

Six possibilities in painting (int.) @ Galerie Bernhard, Mar 6 – Apr 18

Mélodie Mousset @ Forde, Mar 6 – 28

It could be the goldfish is mistaking the bowtie for a football @ Boetzelaer|Nispen, Mar 6 – Apr 18

Keren Cytter @ Studio for Propositional Cinema, Mar 7 – Apr 5

**

See here for exhibitions opening last week.

Header image: Daniel Swan / The Games @ Berger Gray.

  share news item

Some laconic insights care of Xu Zhen

7 March 2014

The story of a solo artist relinquishing his individual artistic identity to become the CEO of an “art corporation” sounds at first like the very allegory of an artist “selling out”. But that’s only if you still believe in the notion of selling out, especially within an art world that increasingly hangs suspended in the ambivalent space between beauty and commerce, propelled and ruled by the principles of capitalism as acutely as any other industry. Long lost are the romantic visions of artists slaving over canvases in lonely studios; no longer does one exist outside the considerations of the industry.

When Chinese-born Xu Zhen renounced his title as solo artist and launched the wildly successful MadeIn Company in 2009, he posited himself in the role of company CEO, likening his duties to that of an ad agency head responsible primarily for the formulation and sculpting of ideas. In fact, in previous interviews, Zhen stated that “[m]ost of the effort [in MadeIn] is spent on thinking’, downplaying the physical or tactile aspects of creation in favor of a conceptual, idea-based cycle of production.

徐震 / Xu Zhen, '《只要一瞬间》/ In Just a Blink of an Eye' (2005). 行为 / Performance. Image courtesy the Armory.
徐震 / Xu Zhen, ‘《只要一瞬间》/ In Just a Blink of an Eye’ (2005). 行为 / Performance. Image courtesy UCCA.

In preview of New York’s upcoming The Armory Show, in which MadeIn Company is featured as part of Armory Focus: China, I tracked down the reticent artist via email (by way of a translator) and ventured to pick his brain about the evolution of the art world and the role of MadeIn Company in the increasingly, even entirely, commercialised industry.

What follows is a somewhat facetious interview, answers given tongue-in-cheek, that nonetheless responds, however obliquely, to the questions at hand: MadeIn and Xu Zhen arise as the creators of culture, replicating and transforming its products and processes, perpetuating as they are examining them. Xu Zhen’s answers at times read like adages, cleverly evading the demand for clear answers and delineating principles, creating an influx of questions with few ready answers. In this manner, he achieves success, as his interview begins to read exactly like his oeuvre of work: intricate, dynamic, confounding.

aqnb: You relinquished your title as Xu Zhen, the solo artist, and launched MadeIn as an art corporation in 2009, but you’ve spoken before about how creative production was always a collaborative process for you. Did this process change as a result of this transition in any way except scale?

Xu Zhen: Collaborative creation implies cooperation, and in China there is the saying: “Harmony between man and nature.” All the individual elements are open, fusing together, continuously changing shape. As an individual element creates, it emphasizes the individual. However, MadeIn Company or brands create culture by using various creating elements.

aqnb: Could you talk a bit about the climate – economic, political or social – that propelled you to develop MadeIn Company. Was it created in response to a particular direction or void in the art world?

XZ: Art may be an individual thing, but making art is definitely a group thing.

徐震 / Xu Zhen, '《香格纳超市》/ ShanghART Supermarket' (2007). 装置 / Installation. Image courtesy UCCA.
徐震 / Xu Zhen, ‘《香格纳超市》/ ShanghART Supermarket’ (2007). 装置 / Installation. Image courtesy UCCA.

aqnb: You’ve mentioned in previous interviews that one of the freeing things about MadeIn Company is the elimination of authorship in exchange for a collaborative, subject-absent process. What changes can the elimination of authorship or artistic identity bring about in the art world market? What repercussions are there in characterizing art of the work of an artist in similar terms as that of an ad agency?

XZ: In this Internet period, creating methods will definitely involve more and more elements and relations within the market, and academic standards will all be changed. The public will think more and more of their needs, and not of the origins of art. Therefore, we can try new things unscrupulously.

aqnb: Your work seems to collapse the very notion of identity and identifiers, individual artistic identity into a creative corporation, abandoning materialism for a meta-material view of art as creativity and thinking. Could you tell me a bit about your notion that “identity can be faked”?

XZ: True love won’t differ if the person you like is single or married. Art is the same: the ultimate identity is unreliable, and it isn’t important.

aqnb: After launching MadeIn in 2009, you are bringing the newly established “Xu Zhen” brand to this month’s The Armory Show for its debut. How does “Xu Zhen” differ from the rest of MadeIn and what was the thought process behind launching this self-titled brand within the company?

XZ: A married man, if he wants to have a nice life, should be crazy.

没顶公司 / MadeIn Company '《意识形状博物馆》/ Physique of Consciousness Museum' (2012). 文献、装置、行为 / Documents, installation, performance. Image courtesy UCCA.
没顶公司 / MadeIn Company ‘《意识形状博物馆》/ Physique of Consciousness Museum’ (2012). 文献、装置、行为 / Documents, installation, performance. Image courtesy UCCA.

aqnb: Much of your work, from ‘Art For Sale’ to ‘The Starving of Sudan’, captures the consumptive process itself as opposed to using its signifiers. Is this something you intentionally set out to do or was it a theme that organically emerged?

XZ: These works are mainly transmitting “art”, and are not merely being an “artwork”.

aqnb: You’ve lamented before the lack of structure or foundation in Chinese contemporary art, stating that support and critical discussion is crucial to the maturation of the arts. Do you see this developing in China any time soon?

XZ: As time goes by, the defaults and benefits due to the lack of such structures will progressively be seen in China.

aqnb: How do you think that the ubiquitous transition into post-internet art is going to affect the Chinese contemporary art scene? Do you see any changes occurring in the international art scene as China becomes a growing consumer market?

XZ: Internet can make the whole world standing at the same starting line. Reaction in the art field is very slow, but it is changing, and it cannot be stopped. **

Xu Zhen is exhibiting at The Armory Show, running in New York March 6 to 9, 2014.

Header image: 徐震 / Xu Zhen,’《永生》 / Eternity
萨莫特拉斯的胜利女神、天龙山石窟 菩萨半跏像
Winged Victory of Samothrace, Tianlongshan Grottoes Bodhisattva'(2014). 装置 / Installation. Produced by MadeIn Company. Image courtesy UCCA.

  share news item