- Another Strong Year for The Armory Show -
Strong sales and attendance beat expectations


“The Armory Show on Pier 94… is in top form."
– Roberta Smith in The New York Times

“There’s no question that The Armory Show belongs to the band of big boys that make up the art fair circuit... It has gone through a few transformations over the years, but the show consistently and unquestionably remains one of the leading, most vital fairs in the world."
– Artinfo.com

“If the Armory Show was supposed to be a test of how the art market was faring amid tumultuous financial markets, initial results revealed that the fair more than passed—and exceeded the expectations of many of the more jittery dealers."
– The Art Newspaper

"All Nervousness Has Flown Away"
– Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"The most important American art fair, The Armory Show in New York."
– Der Spiegel


New York, NY April 22, 2008 Preliminary reports of strong sales at this year’s edition of The Armory Show dispelled fears about the economy’s effect on the art market; while the final results won’t be known for a few more weeks, glowing statements from participants point to a healthy market. Capacity crowds also attended, proving again the popularity of the fair with art lovers, and institutions and galleries once more rounded out a successful Armory Week full of events.

Sean Kelly of Sean Kelly Gallery reports that they sold “every Rebecca Horne we could get our hands on – even ones not at the booth!" He adds that a large work by Joseph Kosuth priced at $275,000 also sold, and that they sold out of Los Carpinteros, with a few of the Cuban art collective’s works going to museums. Other gallerists had similar reports. “We had the best Amory show since we began as exhibitors," says Dorsey Waxter, Director of the Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, pointing in particularly to the sale of a Katsura Funakoshi sculpture for $275,000. She also mentions the sale of a new painting by Sharon Ellis priced at $90,000, as well as multiple sales in the $10,000 to $40,000 price range. Press reports immediately after the preview night noted sales of Jenny Holzer pieces priced from $300,000 to $400,000 at Cheim & Read’s booth, and of a Le Song painting for $160,000 at Galerie Urs Meile, a first-time exhibitor at the fair. And the sales were not limited to big-ticket items: Art in General reports selling 21 of 25 editions of Glenn Ligon’s Self Portrait at Nine Years Old, starting at $1,500. The work was presented for the first time at the fair.

Sales were not the only indicator of success at The Armory Show’s tenth edition. Lines once again stretched for blocks as visitors flocked to the cutting-edge works on view. Numbers reached last year’s capacity crowd of 52,000, though lines were much quicker thanks to organizational improvements: a separate entrance for VIPs and an open schedule for some 2,000 museum visitors instead of last year’s limited entrance on Saturday morning. Celebrities were also sighted making the rounds, including seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, designers Calvin Klein and Angela Missoni, actors Matt Dillon, James Franco and Mary Kate Olsen, as well as, of course, many artists, including Chuck Close, Tracey Emin and Takashi Murakami.

In celebration of its tenth edition, The Armory Show commissioned artists Mary Heilmann and John Waters to collaborate on the fair’s visual identity and to produce special prints for the occasion. The prints, which 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, proved particularly popular and have been selling unusually quickly.

As in years past, there were many great public events connected to what has popularly become known as Armory Week. Among them, all of Williamsburg’s galleries stayed open until 11:00 pm on the Saturday of the fair; the Lower East Side galleries opened and held a guided walking tour on that Sunday; and the New Museum extended its inaugural exhibition, Unmonumental, to coincide with the fair. Also, a number of foreign cultural organizations in New York held special events throughout the week, including curator-guided tours of "Under Pain of Death" at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, an exhibition of The Florence & Daniel Guerlain Collection at the French Embassy, and the Dark Fair at Swiss Institute, co-hosted by the Consulate General of Switzerland.

This year marked the first edition of the fair under the Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc. umbrella, and the company’s vast experience with trade shows and consumer events eased some of the behind-the-scenes organization and logistics.



ABOUT THE ARMORY SHOW
The Armory Show is the successor to the highly acclaimed Gramercy International Art Fairs that attracted thousands to their New York, Los Angeles and Miami shows between 1994 and 1998. In its ten years, The Armory Show has become an international institution. Artists, galleries, collectors, critics and curators from all over the world make New York their destination during Armory Week.