The Armory Show @ Pier 92 & 94

It’s not quite Gagosian’s Hirst show, but you have got to love David Zwirner’s large corner booth at the Armory with three large schematic prints next to a swath of empty wall and then a wall of a reproduction of the three schematic prints. For next year, I think they really need to take it up a notch and have a large empty booth with David Zwirner in a Hawaiian shirt, and straw hat smoking a cigar in a lawn chair in the center of an empty booth and occasionally yelling at passersby, “Yeah, bitches what’s up? That’s right, because we can! Suck it”.

How nice is Bruce Silverstein Gallery’s wall of Zoe Strauss’s pictures of working class to downright poor people. Being at the Armory in a sea of people dressed way too nice and looking suspiciously more attractive than the rest of us, like being on the set of a WB show, and then, bam, you go around a corner, and there is the real world waiting to say hello. Not to mention Zoe Strauss has gotten really good. Her unrelentingly production of new work has really paid dividends since her debut at Bruce Silverstein Gallery. It almost makes me want to hump down to Philly for her show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Also pretty heart warming to find a crowd around Mary Reid Kelly’s video from earlier this year, my pick for the best show of the year by far.

And how great is it that Andres Serrano got the whole Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art booth to himself. Remember his appearance on the first season of the Next Great Art Star? Where he advised the contestants to always “Be controversial” which seemed to pretty much sum up everything he has ever done. Well, it seems like that rather complex artistic thread has fully run its course in his work, and he is now going to make David Levinthal’s art for him.

Is it me or was there a minimum of one new James Casebere picture from the suburban series per booth this year? On the up side, it certainly seemed like there was a lot of photography floating around and even some nice stuff I wasn’t familiar with like the minimalist working class locations of Mike Bayne’s crazy photo realist paintings at the Katharine Mulherin booth or the crazy lava mountain of Corey Arnold at Richard Heller Gallery booth.

Already Down

Piers 92 & 94 (12th Ave. Btw W 55th & 54th Sts.)