The New York Armory art show has everything from performing monkeys to no-carb canapés - but no white walls, writes Gemma Tipton
From MOMA to IMMA, the Guggenheim to the Glucksman, contemporary art galleries and museums, whatever their shape and size, have some things in common - white walls and a hushed reverential mood being the most obvious. After all, whether it's the Museum of Modern Art in New York or the gallery down the road, you need the purity of a white background and the contemplative atmosphere of a church to really appreciate a work of art. Right? It's a belief which also flows on into the private sales rooms of the world's most prestigious commercial galleries where, with a sense of drama that wouldn't disgrace the Second Coming, a work of art is produced for perusal by the (always wealthy) potential buyer, who is able to sit, undisturbed by fuss or noise, facing the painting on which they may be about to spend thousands of pounds, dollars or euro. Atmosphere is vital. Atmosphere, it seems, can be everything.
So why do the world's best galleries line up and pay anything from $7,950 (€5,953) to $42,000 (€31,449), and compete to be one of the 162 contemporary art dealers to secure a booth at the Armory? Opening in New York on March 10th, the Armory is one of the world's biggest contemporary art fairs. Held annually in two enormous warehouses in the Siberia of the far West Side of Manhattan, the Armory has all the contemplative atmosphere of the Main Hall of the RDS during the Spring Show. David Fitzgerald of Dublin's Kerlin Gallery, Ireland's only regular presence at the Armory agrees. "Armory is like any trade fair, but New York is still the centre of the art world, and you're there with the very best contemporary galleries in the world."
Competition for booths is fierce, with more than 550 applicants seeking space at the show. This is less surprising, perhaps, when you discover that sales at last year's Armory topped $43 million (more than €32 million). Once there, competition to buy the works is also fierce. The opening night preview of the Armory has staggered starting times. A ticket that lets you in at 5.30pm costs $500 (€374), entry a mere half an hour earlier is double that, at $1,000 (€749). You certainly wouldn't want to be held up in New York's appalling traffic on your way over.
Once inside, it's a bit of a zoo. My abiding memories of the Armory are less of the art than of snow blizzards (March weather in New York can bring new meaning to the term "inclement"); the clamour of astonishingly thin and astonishingly well-dressed women torn between wanting to be seen and wanting to be the first to see (and also to buy) at the booths of dealers from Jay Jopling to Mary Boone to Larry Gagosian; of champagne and strong cocktails; of no-carb canapés ("You can eat them on your diet," the waiter says, without a trace of irony, as I stare dismally at a smear of paté on a slice of courgette); and, bizarrely, of chimpanzees playing chess upstairs in the "Illy Collectors' Lounge".
THE ARMORY PUTS paid once and for all to the idea that the only way to look at art is in a silent white room. That said, falling in love with a work of art at the Armory is more like the thrill of speed dating, or experiencing lust in a nightclub, than enjoying the lingering intimacy of a romantic dinner for two. And it's a frenzied, chaotic nightclub at that, where everywhere you turn your attention is called and clamoured for. As Fitzgerald puts it: "Selecting work to bring to Armory, you have to choose pieces that will make an impact, and draw people into your stand." The effect of all this is to take away the reliance on context, that orchestrated atmosphere at which the best galleries are so adept, which focuses you on the work of art and can seduce you into wanting something you may forget to even look at twice once you get it home. At a major art fair such as Armory, you have to fall back on your own instincts.
If there is a theme that links the art on view it is, as Katelijne De Backer, the Armory's director describes it: "new art, by living artists", which is a loose enough concept to encompass just about anything that has been made recently. What lifts the show above an unsorted hall of random works of art, however, is the sheer quality of what is on display. A panel of international selectors chooses which galleries to exhibit, and many of these dealers will hold back some of their most prized works, as well as new art fresh out of the studio, for exhibition at the fair. And often, as De Backer says, "the Armory can be your only chance to see a work before it disappears forever into someone's private collection".
Attended by everyone from collectors, critics, curators and museum directors, to families with children, and students on an art safari, the Armory also demonstrates how open and democratic the New York art world can be when it wants to. "The whole city gets involved," says Fitzgerald. "The thing that makes the Armory different is that it is not just about commercial values, and lots of events and exhibitions are satellited off during the fair. Institutes such as MOMA, the Guggenheim and the Whitney all take part, as well as gallery groups from Chelsea to Williamsburg." This year, PS1, who are affiliated to MOMA, are using the Armory weekend to launch their Greater New York show, a survey of the work of 175 artists who they feel "best capture the city's contemporary art scene". "It's like a celebration of art that week," says De Backer. "And it's not just at the fair."
It's just up to you whether you prefer white walls or performing monkeys with your contemporary visual art.
Greater New York runs at PS1, Long Island City, from tomorrow until Sep 6