Art fairs come blazing back, precarious but defiant
Even before COVID, the art world was changing rapidly. Sales that used to happen in New York or Basel, via hushed conversation, now happen through Instagram all over the world. Large galleries are merging to keep up with mega-galleries, while small galleries, somehow, keep multiplying. From a strictly business point of view, this falls Art Week which was postponed from spring and runs through Sunday represents an attempt to carry on with the way things used to be, albeit with some adjustments. The Armory Show, the first major American art fair since the pandemic, has become even more American as travel restrictions and complications knocked 55 mostly European exhibitors into the fairs new online-only component. Visitors to the sprawling Javits Center in Manhattan, the shows new home, will have to prove that theyre vaccinated or have a recent negative coronavirus test, as they will at most of the weeks venues. (Check health protocols beforehan
Even before COVID, the art world was changing rapidly. Sales that used to happen in New York or Basel, via hushed conversation, now happen through Instagram all over the world. Large galleries are merging to keep up with mega-galleries, while small galleries, somehow, keep multiplying. From a strictly business point of view, this falls Art Week which was postponed from spring and runs through Sunday represents an attempt to carry on with the way things used to be, albeit with some adjustments. The Armory Show, the first major American art fair since the pandemic, has become even more American as travel restrictions and complications knocked 55 mostly European exhibitors into the fairs new online-only component. Visitors to the sprawling Javits Center in Manhattan, the shows new home, will have to prove that theyre vaccinated or have a recent negative coronavirus test, as they will at most of the weeks venues. (Check health protocols beforehan