What went down at Armory Week: “This is our job and we love it”
12 min read
Osman Can Yerebakan reports from a jam-packed New York Armory Week filled with rooftop parties, Brazilian Funk and celebrating the last remnants of summer
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Tuesday
The first official gathering of the Armory week is with the design crowd. The Brussels-born contemporary design fair Collectible partnered with Studio Ahead to throw a pre-vernissage gathering in the Williamsburg wine bar, With Others. A spread of feta chunks and piles of lavash bread at the bar leads to the backyard hosting the design world’s who’s who. The line for the skin-contact Italian wine is best handled by delving into the week’s first “How was your summer” conversations. The fair’s co-founder Liv Vaisbger whom I became instant friends with earlier this year in our two-hour Zoom interview is busy fielding last-minute emails and missed calls. I say hi to Alexander May of Los Angeles design studio Sized and wish good luck to Liv as I embark on a quick L train ride to the East Village. Artnet News’s Wet Paint columnist Annie Armstrong organised the week’s first true “art world party” at Jean’s. I descend into the red-hued club after quick hugs with Alex Galan of communications agency Vidoun and Daniel Kapp (one half of Tribeca’s beloved Kapp Kapp gallery which Dan runs with his twin brother Sam). Soulwax’s moody banger Heaven Scent with Chloe Sevigny uttering the lyrics christens the party. “Blooms of honeysuckle; Blooms of magnolia,” the actress mumbles. The song soundtracked my summer (note the sad choice of past tense) travelling around the Greek islands. Do I want summer back? In search of an answer, I turn to art advisor Nazy Nazhand who worked with CAN Ibiza Art fair this summer. “Come September 3rd, all remnants of summer vibes completely evaporate and the energy shifts to an intense focus on the business of living and working in NYC,” she tells me. We commiserate over sea salt-covered 8 pm sunsets, but hey, this is our job and we love it. Instead, I am dancing on the bottom floor of a posh East Village hot spot. Chloe whispers: “Bless me with blooms of lily; Blooms of violet.” Later Annie DMs me her recap: “Summer ending is always a bit of a shock but I hope the party oiled people’s hinges for the inevitable gear shift!”
Where there is a disco ball, there is hope. Wet Paint party at Jean’s.
Wednesday
In Times Square, I am determined to avoid complaining about being here. I head towards Olive Garden for the launch of the BODY FREEDOM FOR EVERY(BODY) truck. Influential Newark art non-profit Project for Empty Space co-founders Jasmine Wahi and Rebecca Pauline Jampol have turned the vehicle into a mobile exhibition which will travel nationwide and evolve with every destination via local artists. Their first stop is Manhattan. “We need to move forward with our power,” Wahi tells me while DJ Paulicakes releases her catchy beats into the billboard-covered square. “The point is to reaffirm and celebrate that no matter what comes out of the election, we will still be here in our own bodies.” Jampol adds that the truck which is covered with Barbara Kruger’s canonised text works, such as Your Body Is A Battleground also celebrates the freedom of mobility. Off I head to The Armory Show’s own opening party at National Arts Club. The 179-year-old Victorian Gothic-style building quickly fills up with live music by a quartet and familiar faces, including the Swiss Institute’s director Stefanie Hessler who tells me about their new ambitious group show, ‘Energies’ which will feature Haroon Mirza’s solar panel on their East Village terrace. The Armory’s communications director and old friend Thomas Davis and I snap a mirror selfie over the ornate fireplace and I say hi to Miles Greenberg and his mother (a cute sighting which re-affirms my plan to bring my mom to Frieze London). Suddenly, I am in Soho in the loft of Mathieu Templon and Emily Marant to toast Galerie Templon’s new Robin Kid show. Emily had just come out of the vernissage of Collectible where she is the New York director—power couple move! After I sandwich my leg between the cab and its sliding door, I limb into the tail end of Kasmin’s party for their solo show with artists Nengi Omuku, Matvey Levenstein and the late Dorothea Tanning at the Standard. My Artsy friends Casey Lesser and Maxwell Rabb catch me by the bar which is about to announce final orders. Kasmin’s Molly Taylor tells me Sarah Sze was just there. The crowd has waned but I can smell the effervescent hint of some recent joy!
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Thursday
When everybody is at The Armory Show, I veer from the herd and head uptown for its namesake The Park Avenue Armory where one of my favorite choreographers, Sharon Eyal, partners with DJ Ben UFO for a residency called R.O.S.E. The opening party sees an eclectic group of patrons and club kids mingling under smoky red lights. Tyler Mitchell tells me he is very excited about what we are about to see, and the appearance of Marina Abramović among the spectators proves his point. The energy is The Eagle meets a Budapest ruin bar with a dash of a fundraiser luncheon in the dark. We all sway with the music and then Eyal’s dancers appear in her typical painfully tight choreography. The absence of a stage means they literally slice through the audience and poetically confront them with sharp gestures. In the blink of an eye, I am in Chelsea, on the rooftop of The Moore Hotel for Marianne Boesky Gallery’s celebration for Gina Beavers and Jay Heikes. Gone are lips, fingers and eyes in Beaver’s absorbing reliefs; instead she replicates commercial goods granted to her by her phone’s algorithm. “I call them comfort-core because they all come from what Instagram suggests to me, like furniture, sheets, or towels,” she tells me under the towering Empire State view. The idea landed her after a long search for a yellow comforter. “I am now interested in everything the body needs but the body itself.”
Manhattan skyline wrapping Marianne Boesky Gallery’s rooftop bash
In Times Square, I am determined to avoid complaining about being here.
Friday
Here we are facing the bravest of the itineraries with four stops. With no time to waste, I show up at Art Production Fund’s outdoor party for Shantell Martin at Lodi where the martinis are always clear. There is a particular joy in celebrating in the middle of the Rockefeller Plaza but somehow removed from the maddening crowd heading towards the NBC store. Martin took over a 125-foot mural inside the plaza with her charmingly sinuous lines of curious eyes and serpentine limbs. “It feels like I’m exactly where I’m meant to be, in the right place at the right time,” the artist shares with me. Fair weeks are about what you miss as much as what you achieve. My friend Hanna Gisel texts to confirm my attendance at Charles Moffett Gallery’s dinner at El Quijote which celebrates their show with painter Julia Jo. While I am always down for anything Chelsea Hotel-related, I heartbreakingly decline due to logistical impossibilities. It is hard to say no to Jo’s turbulent paintings and the best patatas bravas in town. Next is Tribeca, where there are tonnes of gallery openings—I land on the new iteration of R& Company’s ‘Objects: USA 2024’ triennial. The party upstairs is co-hosted by Julio Torres and the crowd is an overlap of art and design universes. My friend Camille Okhio emerges from the crowd. She’s a design maven who is about to head to Miami to install the group show she is curating at Nina Johnson. The Uber arrives on time for Mendes Wood DM’s bash at the new hot spot Time Again in the Lower East Side. The Brazilian gallerists know the recipe to gather a massive but never overwhelming crowd. Funk legend Deise Tigrona is playing inside while the crowd spills onto the sidewalk where the Manhattan Bridge view meets the typical Friday mayhem. Moving is almost impossible, so I wave at Larry Ossei-Mensah and Danny Baez. One of my besties, Gabby Angeleti and I revel in the resemblance of the stamps on our wrists to buttholes, marked by the bouncer. Maintaining my buzz, I stroll to Perrotin’s party at Pretty Ricky’s for their fall shows, including a MSCHF solo. At the bar, I see one of my favorite people in the industry, the upstate art centre Magazzino’s former director Vittorio Calabrese. My recollections about the fourth stop remain hazy, so Vittorio might be a more reliable source for our conversation.
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Saturday
Those who assume the fun has reached an end with the start of the fair’s public days are brutally wrong. I start my Saturday in the Meatpacking District with a coffee date with Hilary Burt of Soco Gallery in Charlotte and kick off the evening with Oliver Herring’s performance about AIDS trauma and healing through knitting at Shanghai-based gallery BANK’s outpost on Bowery. I hear a man tell his friend “I’ve been skipping our group chats; that is why I don’t know where your residency is” and I know I am in the right place. Herring’s three-part contemplative performance comes on the heels of the gallery booth’s winning of the Sauer Artist Prize at The Armory and attracts an intrigued crowd, including Ryan McGinley. I then zigzag between Karma gallery’s two neighboring locations for their solo shows with Dike Blair and Ryan Preciado. On the way I run into SCAD Museum of Art’s chief curator Daniel S. Palmer who is always genuinely passionate about artists. We promise to continue the chat at Rosie’s where Karma is throwing its bash. The fare is Mexican and the crowd is vibrant, including painter Ann Craven with whom I talk about caring for dogs who are approaching old age. I ask Dike Blair about his new alluring pool paintings which take me back to Tuesday when I reminisced about the summer through a song. “If you own a pool, the end of summer feels more melancholic,” he tells me with a twinkle in his eyes.
Oliver Herring performance at BANK's East Village pop-up
A detail from Dike Blair's aluminum on panel painting at Karma
Sunday
One more day to go, and this time my schedule is pretty light. I had promised curator Parker Calvert at the Perrotin party that I would stop by to watch their basketball game at the Grand Street courts. Parker and his brother Clayton’s non-profit NYC Culture Club has organized the day-long tournament, called Ball for Art, with artists and dealers to raise funds for different organisations, such as Artnoir and Arts Connection. Artists like Ludovic Nkoth, Tariku Shiferaw, Khari Turner and Danny Baez are running behind the ball on the court. It is a sunny Sunday afternoon, and what could be a better way to top off an intense fair week than with some socially conscious athleticism? The crowd cheers, the balls find the hoop, and “Did you see, we won!” yells Danny.
