The Armory Show has arrived in Manhattan, and Hakim Bishara has done the city a favor by boiling it down to one sentence. The fair, he reports, is “awfully quiet and downcast.” That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
Bishara is not sitting out the show entirely. He’s just doing his job, which involves reading an awful lot of press releases. His one-liner is a dispatch meant to spare everyone else the strain of wandering through booths and trying to figure out whether the mood is optimism or gloom. The financial sector trade show on the floor below, he notes, seems like a riot in comparison.
Independent 20th Century at the Breuer Building
While Bishara is keeping things short, Valentina Di Liscia is doing the opposite. She is describing the fifth edition of Independent’s dedicated modern art fair, which opened today at the Breuer Building in Manhattan. Di Liscia calls it a “monstrous mise en abyme,” a term she uses to describe the fair within an auction house inside a building that used to be a museum.
The Breuer Building is a Brutalist landmark that Sotheby’s purchased in 2023. It served as the long-time home of the Whitney Museum of American Art from 1966 to 2014. Later, it briefly housed the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s contemporary galleries, and then the Frick Collection used it temporarily during renovations. Di Liscia writes that if she were the building, she’d need a vacation.
“Independent 20th Century is an art fair within an auction house inside a building that used to be a museum, a monstrous mise en abyme that perfectly encapsulates the art world today.”
The Artists Getting Their Due
Di Liscia’s review focuses on the artists themselves. The fair is dedicated to overlooked and marginalized figures, the kind of artists who rarely get their due. The Breuer Building, she suggests, has become a place where those artists can finally be seen.
The one-sentence approach to the Armory Show is a deliberate contrast to the sprawling nature of Independent 20th Century. While the fair at the Breuer Building is a dense, layered experience, the Armory Show, according to Bishara, is a quiet one.
What Else Is in the News
The rest of the roundup covers a wide range of cultural events. There is a new collection of handmade jewelry created by Laura Raicovich, who hand-forges and personally makes each piece in New York City. Each item draws on her collection of gemstones, antique beads, intaglios, and bespoke-fabricated elements.
There is also news from Christie’s, which has launched a new pop culture division. Items up for auction include music memorabilia, treasured instruments, and revered film props. The El Museo del Barrio in New York has expressed regret over providing rental space for a conspiracy-filled conference marking the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
The Venice Biennale
Two reviews from the Venice Biennale round out the package. Eurídice Arratia looks at “Tide of Returns,” an exhibition investigating the histories and futures of handmade dolls repatriated to an Indigenous Australian community. A professor stole the dolls over 70 years ago, and the show traces what happens after they are returned.
Amanda Cachia writes about the Polish Pavilion, where whale songs become a means of communication, opening up a dialogue on accessibility. The pavilion dissolves visitors into the politics of sound.
Photography and Plants
Monica Uszerowicz reviews an exhibition at the Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College that examines how artists use serial configurations of pictures and text to prompt questions about seeing. The show asks what photographs can say in a world full of images.
In the Hyper Links section, Damon Winter, a staff photographer at the New York Times, writes about seeing unexpected beauty in the decaying landscape of the NYC subway system. A TikTok debate about Gen-Z job-seekers bringing iced coffee to interviews has spiraled into a conversation about corporate culture, explained by author Maya Watson in the Cut.
From the Archive
Julia Curl’s “Science/Fiction Is a Botanical Daydream” is a photo history of plants that tackles the problem of how to pull ourselves out of the blind, anthropocentric march toward climate disaster. It is listed in the From the Archive section.
Valerie Hird commented on “An Unequal Artist Legacy Field Defines Who Gets to Be Remembered.” The archive section includes older pieces.
The Big Picture
The one-sentence assessment of the Armory Show is a marvel of compression. It tells you everything you need to know about the fair’s current state: quiet, downcast. Bishara’s line is a joke, but it is also a fair warning. If you are planning to attend, you might want to bring a book.
The contrast with Independent 20th Century could not be starker. That fair is a monster, a layered beast of a show held in a building with a rich history. The artists it represents have been overlooked for decades, and now they have a platform.
The Polish Pavilion review at Venice is a reminder that sound can be political. Whale songs are not just pretty noises; they are a means of communication, and the pavilion turns that idea into an exhibit. The dolls repatriated to Australia raise questions about ownership, memory, and the weight of colonial theft. These are serious shows, and they deserve attention.
The jewelry collection and the Christie’s pop culture division are lighter fare, but they are part of the same cultural landscape. The El Museo del Barrio’s regret over hosting a conspiracy-filled conference is a cautionary tale about institutional responsibility. The museum provided the space, and now it is paying the price.
The Hyper Links section is a grab bag of interesting reads, from subway decay to iced coffee debates. It is the kind of material that makes a daily newsletter worth opening.
The archive section is a time capsule. It contains older pieces about photography, plants, and the future of humanity. It is a reminder that the art world has been thinking about these things for a while.
The Armory Show is quiet. Independent 20th Century is loud. The Biennale is politically engaged. The dolls are back in the hands of the community that made them. The jewelry is being forged in New York. The subway is decaying beautifully. The corporate culture debate is raging on TikTok.
That is a lot to take in. The one-sentence approach to the Armory Show is a useful tool for anyone who wants to avoid the fair altogether. If you are tired of wandering through booths and trying to figure out whether the mood is optimism or gloom, Bishara has done the work for you. The fair is downcast, and that is all you need to know.
Source material: “Should You Sit Out the Armory Show?,” Hyperallergic.
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