Armory Show: everything there is to know about the New York fair.

New York welcomes the Armory Show with snow. The event born in 1913 to present the modern art to the American citizens, with works such as the Nude Descending The Staircase of Marcel Duchamp, scandalizes the visitors but at the same time manages to be a sales success. The fair, which took place in the armoury of the National Guard, is one of the events which led to the start of the shift of the focus, that crystallizes toward the decade of the 1940s, of the world of art from Europe to the United States.

One hundred and five years after, Manhattan remains one of the capitals of art and still gets agitated on the first weeks of March. From Thursday to Sunday, in the Piers 92 and 94 of the 12th Avenue two pavilions take place with almost two hundred exhibitors, a theatre, three lounges and seven restaurants.

The fair consists of 5 sections. The Pier 94 is occupied mainly by the main section, with 109 participating galleries from all over the world but especially from France, Italy, Germany, England and the United States, and the section "Presents", dedicated to 26 galleries with less than ten years with solo or double shows for new talents that can be discovered in a warm and intimate atmosphere. This section also offers the Presents Booth Prize, which recognizes with U$D 10,000 an innovative gallery.

In Pier 92 holds the Focus and Insights. This last one holds 32 international galleries that emphasize solo or double shows or thematic presentations of works made before the year 2000. Highlights include a series of 1970s ‘pulled wedge’ works by Ed Moses at albertz benda; a survey of major works by Anna Maria Maiolino from the 1970s through 1990s at Mercedes Viegas; a collection of rare collages by Yayoi Kusama at Omer Tiroche Gallery; and the first-ever United States exhibition of works by Huang Rui, a leading artist in postCultural Revolution China, at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery. Focus section, curated by Gabriel Ritter, Curator and Head of Contemporary Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, features 28 international galleries with solo or dual-artist presentations, which examine how technology has both mediated representation of the physical body and imagined its emancipation in contemporary art.

Platform stages large-scale artworks, installations and commissions across Piers 92 & 94. Now in its second edition, the 2018 Platform section, entitled The Contingent, is curated by Jen Mergel, Vice President of Programming for the Association of Art Museum Curators and former senior curator of contemporary art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Featuring 15 site-responsive projects by internationally acclaimed artists, Platform includes 11 new works by The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Sarah Cain, Beth Campbell, Tara Donovan, Leonardo Drew, Jeffrey Gibson, JR, Amalia Pica, Alex Schweder and Ward Shelley, Berndnaut Smilde, and Wilmer Wilson IV. Four large-scale projects by Elmgreen & Dragset, Sir Richard Long, Mary Sibande, and Wang Xin will make their US debut.

Highlights include a keynote by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director of Serpentine Galleries, on exhibition making in the 21st century; solo artist conversations with JR, Hermann Nitsch and Carolee Schneemann; artists-in-dialogue pairings featuring Constant Dullaart and Matt Goerzen; Leonardo Drew and Ja'Tovia Gary; and Josh Kline and Patty Chang; and a series of panels addressing the future of the gallery model, the rapid growth of new cultural centers globally and the paradoxical conditions for political resistance.

Outside the premises of the fair, the Armory Arts Week celebrates the diversity and breadth of the cultural offer of New York. In addition, eight fairs channels that coincide with the week of the Armory Show: Art on Paper, Collective Design, Independent, Moving Image Art Fair, NOTHING, Scope, Spring/Break Art Show and Volta NY.