Our Curators’ Guide to The Armory Show 2024

The week after Labor Day in the New York art world means one thing: The Armory Show. Here, we share a guide to the fair’s 2024 edition, including the info you need to plan your visit and the must-see artworks we’re eyeing from the The Armory Show’s exclusive preview on Artsy.

What is The Armory Show?

Among New York City’s most anticipated annual art events, The Armory Show is returning to the Javits Center this September 5th through 8th. From its beginnings, the fair—now in its 30th edition—has focused primarily on showing contemporary art by living artists. Its exhibitors also feature the work of 20th-century greats.

What’s new at The Armory Show this year?

Located at the Javits Center on 11th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen—just north of some of the city’s most prominent galleries in Chelsea—this year’s fair will feature over 235 galleries from 35 countries. Among these, 55 are first-time exhibitors.

Launched as the Gramercy International Art Fair in 1994, The Armory Show is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. The milestone comes at a transitional time for the fair, which was acquired by Frieze in July 2023. This year’s fair was planned in collaboration with Frieze. The Armory Show also recently appointed a new director, Kyla McMillan, founder of Saint George Projects and a former director at David Zwirner.

In addition to the main Galleries section, there are several curated sections throughout the fair, including:

• Solo, which features solo presentations by artists ranging from emerging talents to 20th-century masters.
• Focus, curated by The Kitchen’s senior curator Robyn Farrell, which showcases cross-disciplinary projects that call back to the fair’s avant-garde beginnings.
• Presents, which spotlights younger galleries that have been operating for 10 years or less.
• Platform, curated by former Brooklyn Museum curator Eugenie Tsai, which features large-scale installations installed throughout the fair. This year, the presentation will explore the theme of collective memory, with works by Dominique Fung, Sanford Biggers, and Nari Ward, among others.

Planning your visit

Dates and hours

The Armory Show’s invitation-only VIP preview runs on Thursday, September 5th from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The fair is open to the public on September 6th and 7th from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and on September 8th from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Tickets

Tickets can be purchased on site at the door, or in advance from The Armory Show’s website. Single-day admission will run you $57, or you can buy a multi-day entry pass for $120.

Our curators’ picks from The Armory Show 2024

We’re pleased to be hosting the exclusive online preview of The Armory Show on Artsy, beginning August 29th. Even if you plan to attend the fair in person, browsing the digital preview can help you strategize before your visit and be first to inquire about artwork availability before these works are shown publicly. We’ll continue hosting inventory on Artsy until September 22nd, so you can shop long after the booths come down at the Javits Center.

Artsy’s Curatorial team scoured the preview to highlight the very best available artworks in our Curators’ Picks: Armory Week collection, which we’ll continue to update regularly as more inventory becomes available on Artsy.

Here, we share the artists and trends we’re eyeing at the fair.

Artists to watch at The Armory Show

• Yoonhee Choi at G Gallery: Korean emerging artist Yoonhee Choi is making her Armory debut with Seoul’s tastemaking G Gallery. One of Artsy’s Artists on Our Radar last December, Choi paints amorphous and undulating color fields in meditative palettes. Her abstractions call to mind deep space and chemical reactions.
• Chris Soal at WHATIFTHEWORLD: Repurposing found materials, including beer bottle caps and electric fencing cables, South African artist Chris Soal crafts intricate sculptures that play with texture and shape. A standout work featured in Soal’s presentation with Cape Town gallery WHATIFTHEWORLD is Hide (2024). The biomorphic sculpture, composed of countless sharp toothpicks, creates a striking illusion of softness from afar. In transforming everyday objects, Soal showcases the surprising potential of materials.
• Camila Falquez at Hannah Traore: New York–based photographer Camila Falquez’s compelling portraits, presented by Hannah Traore, are defined by her subjects’ direct gazes and her distinct use of color. These photos explore ideas about power, beauty, and gender expression—as seen in Alondra Yajaira Márquez Carabalí, Ella (2024), which captures the human rights activist posing on concrete stairs in a flowing red dress that evokes a mermaid’s tail. Like Falquez’s other works, this photo is framed in silk, underscoring the importance of fabric to her subjects’ self-presentation.

Trends to watch at The Armory Show

• Natural abstraction: Earlier this year, we noted a number of artists fusing the age-old tradition of landscape painting with abstraction, one of the market’s current obsessions. Natural abstraction is abundant at this year’s Armory Show, too. One standout work is the breathtaking three-panel oil painting Of Mercy to Shelter and Shield (2024) from Artsy Vanguard alum Li Hei Di, on offer from Michael Kohn Gallery. Other examples in this category include buzzed-about Frankenthaler-esque paintings by Heather Day, and impressive light-reflecting tableaus by Nir Hod that recall Monet’s water lilies.
• Architectural sculptures: Browsing the preview, we asked ourselves—are we witnessing a resurgence of minimalism? This year’s fair has a wide-ranging selection of large-scale sculptures with strong, architectural lines, many crafted with industrial materials. At Nara Roesler, severe-yet-elegant metal sculptures by the Brazilian artist Artur Lescher swing from the ceiling like giant pendulums, held aloft by steel cables. Meanwhile, Larry Bell, known for his transparent, hard-edged sculptures, has several works on offer at the fair, including an exemplary dark gray cube at Bernard Jacobson Gallery.

• Figurative textile art: In 2022, we spotlighted women artists of color working with textile art, exploring their relationship with the medium and its historical legacy. This kind of practice is well-represented at this year’s Armory Show. In the preview, we noted a trend of figurative textile art, as exemplified by the works of Kimathi Mafafo, Akea Brionne, and Kandy G Lopez. Mafafo’s hand- and machine-embroidered works, presented by Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, depict Black women surrounded by nature. Brionne also presents portraits of women in natural environments; her shimmering works, on offer from Library Street Collective, are created using digitally printed images on jacquard. Lopez, who is showing with ACA Galleries, sets her subjects against minimalist, gridded backdrops using yarn, mesh, and acrylic paint.

Beyond The Armory Show

The Armory Show is not the only fair happening in New York in September. Independent 20th Century is back at Cipriani South Street from September 5th through 8th, and VOLTA Art Fair, which focuses on emerging art, is also returning to New York from September 4th through 8th. And of course, there will be plenty of new gallery shows opening across the city, from Tribeca to the Upper East Side.

The Armory Show 2024’s off-site programming expands the fair’s footprint with a range of public artworks across New York City. We’re eyeing Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons’s Procession of Angels for Radical Love and Unity, a participatory procession taking place on September 7th. And for those heading to the U.S. Open, don’t miss a series of large-scale sculptures at the National Tennis Center.