- Mary Heilmann and John Waters Celebrate The 10th Edition of The Armory Show with New Art -
Proceeds from commissioned prints benefit two charities


New York NY March 3, 2008 In celebration of its tenth edition, The Armory Show, The International Fair of New Art, has commissioned artists Mary Heilmann and John Waters to collaborate on the fair’s visual identity and to produce special prints for the occasion. This year’s selection was inspired by the artists’ friendship and professional relationship with the fair’s late founders Colin de Land and Pat Hearn.

A pioneer of postmodern abstract painting, Mary Heilmann combines modernist selfreferentiality with personal narrative in playful colorful panels of loosely-painted gestural and geometric forms. She describes the time in 1986 when Pat Hearn stood in front of her piece “Rosebud" as the moment that the two forged an artist-dealer commitment, complete with a “real feeling of romance and magic and love." Heilmann’s first major museum retrospective, “To Be Someone," organized by the Orange County Museum of Art, is currently traveling within the United States and will culminate at The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York in September 2008. She is represented by 303 Gallery, New York, and Hauser & Wirth Zürich London.

Well known for his provocative filmmaking, writing and ventures into Broadway musicals (“Hairspray", the upcoming “Cry-Baby"), John Waters added still photography to his idiosyncratic canon in the early 1990s. The artist, originally a client and then a friend of Colin de Land, joined the American Fine Arts roster in 1995 after he showed the gallerist the "little movies" he had snapped off his TV monitor and rearranged in storyboard-like sequences. These appropriated movie stills subvert the original films' narratives and humorously send-up the heartbreak, frustration and humiliation of the film industry. Waters was honored with a retrospective exhibition, “Change of Life," at The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York in 2004. He is represented by Marianne Boesky Gallery.

The print series is an extension of The Armory Show’s distinguished annual artist commission. In 2002, The Armory Show broke new ground by commissioning Karen Kilimnik to interpret the image of the fair. The program continued with partnerships with Barnaby Furnas (2003), Lisa Ruyter (2004), Jockum Nordström (2005), John Wesley (2006) and Pipilotti Rist (2007). In 2006 The Armory Show began publishing an annual series of editions to benefit the Pat Hearn and Colin de Land Cancer Foundation and the Pat Hearn and Colin de Land Acquisition Fund at The Museum of Modern Art. John Wesley was the first artist to support the funds by donating two prints to this project, followed by Pipilotti Rist in 2007. The Pat Hearn and Colin de Land Cancer Foundation is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to provide assistance for medical expenses to members of the visual arts community suffering from cancer. Financial grants are distributed to cover the costs of medical services, including standard conventional care, unconventional and experimental therapies, palliative care, home care and hospice care. Further information about the foundation and details on how to make a contribution are available at www.phcdl.org.

The Pat Hearn and Colin de Land Acquisition Fund at The Museum of Modern Art helps the museum acquire works in all media by artists who have not received the recognition they deserve. Established in 2000 in Pat Hearn’s honor and later renamed in both her and Colin de Land’s name, this fund follows the guiding principle that Hearn and de Land embraced in their gallery programs, a commitment to new art that lies at the heart of The Armory Show. To learn more about the fund or to make a gift, please contact Emmett S. Watson at The Museum of Modern Art at 212.708.9404, or email emmett_watson@moma.org. Visitors to the tenth edition of The Armory Show on New York’s Pier 94, March 27-30, will encounter new art by over 2,000 living artists from 160 of the world’s leading galleries and nonprofit organizations.

Exhibitors will be coming from 39 different cities in 21 countries to create an exhibition that encompasses the richness and diversity of the international art world at its most current.

Please contact our offices at 212.645.6440 or info@thearmoryshow.com for print prices and availability.