Mar 06 2020

Roundup From the Armory Show 2020

by Paul Laster

The blackened entrance to The Armory Show 2020 at Pier 94, New York, during the VIP Preview Day. All photos by Paul Laster for ArtAsiaPacific.

The Armory Show, which returned to Piers 90 and 94 on New York’s Hudson River for its 26th edition boasted 183 exhibitors from 32 countries, although most were American and European galleries while only 14 were from Asia or have a presence there.

“The fair looks fantastic,” Nicole Berry, director of The Armory Show, told AAP when asked about her thoughts. “We have a lot of solo and two-person booths. We have fewer Asian galleries than we have had in the past, but that was the case before all of this craziness happened in the world. We have Tang, Chambers, and Whitestone, along with Dastan’s Basement, Yavuz, and lots of other galleries showing Asian art.”

The spotlight was on contemporary art from around the world in the Presents section, where younger galleries showcased works from emerging artists created within the past three years. The Focus section, curated by Jamillah James, curator of Los Angeles’s The Institute of Contemporary Art, took a revisionist approach with international artists. The segment held solo and dual-artist presentations that blurred boundaries between fantasy and reality. Perspectives, organized by director of Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Nora Burnett Abrams, highlighted influential modern and contemporary artists from the 20th-century. Meanwhile, Anne Ellegood, executive director of LA’s Institute of Contemporary Art placed large-scale sculptures that offered social critique throughout the fair on both piers as part of the Platform program.

Here are some highlights:

Malay-Australian artist ABDUL ABDULLAH’s seven panel painting Custodians (2020) at Yavuz Gallery (Singapore / Sydney) features white-outlined depictions of man and nature in scenes of conflict and harmony against a realistic rendering of raging seas in the background. An attempt to capture a moment of crisis, the work speaks to a need for all creatures to re-evaluate their role and place in a rapidly changing world.

At Denny Dimin Gallery (New York / Hong Kong), Iranian-American artist AMIR H. FALLAH’s dynamic portraits Through the Fence (2019), The Sun, The Moon, And The Truth (2018), and A Rare Rose, But Not Without Thorns (2020) reveal details of the sitters’ ethnic backgrounds through the various objects and motifs shown.

Klowden Mann (Los Angeles) presented Jamaican-Chinese artist ANDREA CHUNG’s mixed-media collages from her VEX (2020) series, which combines found images of Jamaican women with beaded pins, symbolizing positive voodoo. Also presented was the artist’s sculptural assemblage Pure (2017), comprised of found objects and cast soap hands referencing traditional healers in her homeland.

Malaysian artist ANNE SAMAT’s colorful assemblages at Marc Straus (New York), Rania Inara (2019), Eyes Are Like Angels But Heart Is Cold #1 (2020), and No Place For Beginners Or Sensitive Heart #2 (2020) combines discount store items with beads, threads, tools, and ceramics on traditional rattan wall hangings, in an attempt to confront issues of gender identity.

Dirimart (Istanbul) presented works by Turkish artists: EBRU UYGUN’s thickly layered, monochromatic silver canvas Liberal Imagination (2017); AYSE ERKMEN’s patinated bronze floor sculptures from the series not the color it is (2015); ÖZLEM GÜNYOL-MUSTAFA KUNT’s series Materialistic Paintings (2019), made with metals used in the coin production of the most traded world currencies.

Chambers Fine Art (New York / Beijing) presented GUO HONGWEI’s watercolors on paper The Landscape of Natural Form No.2, and No. 1 featuring close-up views of leaves and bones, along with Red in Snow (all 2017) depicting a synthetically packaged apple. Shown in front of the paintings was SONG HONGQUAN’s hand carved marble sculptures from the Cloud (2016) series, inspired by tiny bamboo fungus used in Ayurvedic medicine.

At Prometeo Gallery (Milan / Lucca), lightbox montage images incorporating archival photos and colored cellulose film from Kurdish-Iraqi artist HIWA K’s It Almost Hit the Heart series (2018–19) addresses Iraq’s political changes during the 1960s, while his sculpture 0˚ Blind Spot, Where Beloved is… (2017–18) is an assemblage of street mirrors referencing his journey from Iraq to Europe by foot.

Japanese artist JIRO TAKAMATSU’s Shadow Key No. 204 (1968), a painted wood panel with the trompe-l’oeil shadow of a hanging skeleton key provides a visual clue to his two later Shadow (both 1997) paintings of a cat and a baby. A founding member of Japan’s experimental performance and happening collective Hi Red Center, Takamatsu’s work was exhibited at the booth of Whitestone Gallery (Tokyo / Hong Kong / Taipei / Karuizawa) alongside works from fellow HRC collective artists GENPEI AKASEGAWA and NATSUYUKI NAKANISHI.

Dastan’s Basement (Tehran) showcased large-scale paintings by Iranian painter and muralist MEDHI GHADYANLOO, one of few recent artists to have commissioned projects in both the United States and Iran. His works are inspired by childhood memories of shelters during the Iran-Iraq War, commenting on the boxed-in sense that Iranians still feel today.

At Baik + Khneysser (Los Angeles / Seoul), Indonesian artist MELLA JAARSMA’s Feeding The Nation II (2020) featured performers in costumes with faucets on the breasts, while JOMPET KUSWIDANANTO’s Saint (2020), sculptural hangings of a leather harness with the tail and body cloth covered in shamanistic potions and relics, highlighted Western colonial exploitations of Australia.

Edel Assanti (London) brought works examining Middle Eastern politics. Iranian-American photographer and filmmaker SHEIDA SOLEIMANI ’s corresponding prints 1/8/2020 and PS752 (both 2020) show US president Donald Trump’s pointing finger with a hawk resting on it contrasted with the hand of his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, with a dove. Meanwhile, Israeli artist OREN PINHASSI’s poetic sculptures blurring the boundaries between figuration, architecture, and design, are painted, burlap covered steel and glass objects that have a certain existentialist appeal.

At Erik Thomson Gallery (New York), Japanese artist SHIGEKI KITANI’s collages Demon 1 (1963) and Work (1959) were mounted on the walls along with SHIRYU MORITA’s two-panel folding screen depicting a calligraphic abstraction, Dragon (1985).

Axel Vervoordt Gallery (Antwerp / Hong Kong) presented Japanese Gutai artist YUKO NASAKA’s untitled abstract paintings (1967–2017), mixing her monochromes, which she makes by manipulating plaster and pigment on canvas and panels, with her smaller, more colorful tondos on wood.

Tang Contemporary Art (Beijing / Hong Kong / Bangkok) showcased Chinese artists. ZHAO ZHAO’s oil on canvas Constellations (2019) re-interprets details from his bullet-shot glass wall sculptures, while his In Extremis No. 26 (2018), one of his cut-metal, puzzle-like asphalt installations covered the floor of the gallery’s booth. WU WEI’s painted panel Composite Animal Skins (2019) features finely cut, hair-like paper.