The Armory Show

From Investment to Connoisseurship — Debating Major Shifts in Collecting

Bringing together a diverse cast of notable art world figures, this panel will examine the question: what does it mean to be a collector today? Charting major shifts in the art market—from its global proliferation through art fairs, social media, and increasing speculation from investors—how has the notion and practice of collecting changed over the last quarter century? What are the mid- and long-term effects of these shifts, and what role does the art community at large play in cultivating connoisseurship over investment?

Moderator: Melanie Gerlis, Art Market Columnist, Financial Times

Participants: Sean Kelly, Owner, Sean Kelly; Daniel Sallick, Collector; Lisa Schiff, President and Founder, Schiff Fine Art; Pedro Barbosa, Collector; Naomi Baigell, Managing Director, Athena Art Finance

Sex, Provocation, and New York in the ’90s

Bringing together pioneering figures from the New York art world, this panel will take stock of the great American culture wars, and consider how notions of feminism, sexuality, and provocation have changed, reflecting on why (and how) New York City has remained a bastion of non-conformism through the decades.

Moderator: Sarah Douglas, Editor in Chief, ARTnews

Participants: Linda Yablonsky, Writer; Mitchell Algus, Founder and Owner, Mitchell Algus Gallery; Maura Reilly, Curator and Writer

In Conversation: peter campus and Dr. Tina Rivers Ryan

One of the first generation of video artists, peter campus has pioneered ways of using video technologies to explore topics ranging from human psychology to the natural landscape. In conjunction with the presentation of his work at The Armory Show and his first museum survey in the United States—video ergo sum, opening on March 6th at the Bronx Museum—campus will be interviewed by Dr. Tina Rivers Ryan, Assistant Curator, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, about his single-channel videos and video installations dating back to the 1970s.

Biennials Then and Now

The number of biennials has grown exponentially in the last quarter century with some 300 held annually in 2018. As they continue to proliferate, how has their relevancy and influence shifted, and what role can their unique multinationalism play in today’s geopolitical climate? Sally Tallant, The Armory Show’s 2019 Platform curator, will bring her own experience directing the Liverpool Biennial to guide this panel’s investigation into the relevancy of biennials today.

Moderator: Sally Tallant, Incoming Executive Director & President, Queens Museum

Participants: Ryan Gander, Artist; Bige Örer, Director, Istanbul Biennial; Candice Hopkins, Senior Curator, Toronto Biennial of Art

In Conversation: Lynne Cooke and Nick Mauss

Lynne Cooke, Senior Curator of Special Projects in Modern Art at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and artist Nick Mauss will use two recent major projects as a backdrop for a conversation about artistic and curatorial practice, and the relationships between vanguard art and other modes of creativity in the history of modernism. Cooke’s traveling exhibition, Outliers and American Vanguard Art examined important intersections of self-taught artists with the mainstream, and Mauss’ Transmissions, a multidisciplinary work at The Whitney Museum of American Art, explored the relationship between modernist ballet and the avant-garde visual arts in New York.

Who Gets to be American?

How has the American narrative portrayed by cultural institutions fallen short? Examining representations of race and gender through the prism of the American identity, in what ways have institutions, and the art world at large, failed or succeeded in introducing overlooked narratives into art history? This panel aims to address these questions and the methodologies being used to rewrite historical narratives, probing what aspects of the American identity remain unaddressed and overlooked.

Moderator: Charlotte Burns, Writer and Editor, In Other Words, Art Agency Partners

Participants: Antwaun Sargent, Writer; Lauren Haynes, Curator, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Paul Anthony Smith, Artist

Creative Control — Criticism as Art, and Art as Criticism

“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art,” Susan Sontag, one of America’s most astute interpreters of art, once wrote—surely with a touch of irony. But is critical thinking really an enemy of the creative spirit? Or is it precisely this friction that makes for a richer, more dynamic cultural landscape? This conversation addresses the necessity, and the limits, of both art and criticism, and how the relationship between artist and critic has evolved over time.

Moderator: Jennifer Krasinski, Senior Editor, Artforum

Participants: Rhonda Lieberman, Writer and Artist, Contributing Editor, Artforum; Carroll Dunham, Artist and Critic; Tobi Haslett, Writer and Critic