New York's Art-A-Palooza

On Wednesday, the Armory Show opened at Piers 92 & 94 on the westside highway, kicking off what has now become something of an unofficial Contemporary Art Festival--or, what I call the Art-A-Palooza.  This year there are now more than 6 auxiliary art fairs running concurrently with the Armory in locations all around town: 

• Pulse, at 330 West Street, at West Houston Street, South Village (pulse-art.com)
• Scope New York at Damrosch Park, in Lincoln Center (scope-art.com)
• the Fountain Art Fair on Pier 66 at 26th Street and the West Side Highway, Chelsea (fountainexhibit.com)
• Red Dot New York at 500 West 36th Street (reddotfair.com)
• Verge at the Dylan Hotel, 52 East 41st Street (vergeartfair.com)
• Volta at 7 West 34th Street (voltashow.com)

I attended opening night of the Armory and was overwhelmed to say the least.  There are roughly 300 galleries on the piers this year squeezed in to a labyrinth of cubicles and walkways. While there is some memorable work on display (notably the big silver pirate above), I found that after 3 hours of wandering around it all had a tendency to blend together.  One thing I did notice, however, was a striking lack of gay/lesbian content to the show. I mean, this is the art world right?  


Lately, I love going to these shows more for the people-watching than the art.  It was an endless parade of NY-hipsters and Euro-fancies with some serious fashion and hair/makeup going on Wednesday night.  Trends spotted: big owl glasses for the men, super asymmetrical haircuts for the ladies and ghostly white makeup for the boys.  It was seriously like art-world runway.  It almost makes me wonder if the whole show is actually some secret performance art project that some intrepid artist is discreetly videotaping.  If so, that would definitely be worth seeing.