
Trust me, even if you’ve been looking at art for a long, long time (or even longer than that), you will see work at the Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory you have not seen before, by artists you may never have heard of. This is not because the Art Show, organized by the Art Dealers Association of America to benefit Henry Street Settlement,” is dedicated to showing the young and hip. Quite the opposite, ADAA represents blue-chip galleries that show high-quality work. But it has a terrific roundup of art by lesser-known artists, many dead or left out of art history for all the ordinary reasons (gender, geographical location or the idiosyncrasies of their work at a given moment). And despite the density, the fair is very manageable compared with other mega-fairs in New York.
Other strains running through the 72 exhibitors at ADAA this year, the fair’s 32nd edition, are a focus on geometric abstraction and craft and a high percentage of female artists — 19 exhibitions are dedicated to them. With an enormous backlog of women, artists of color and people working in unusual media, fairs like this one are yet another place to play catch-up. Below are some highlights, divided into categories with lots of slippage and overlap.
Uncommon Geometries
Just inside the fair’s entrance, three booths are showing geometrically abstract work — a good indication of its current popularity. The Houston gallery Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino (A1) has canvases by Mercedes Pardo (1921-2005), a Venezuelan painter whose dark, moody colors — she mixed her own pigments — and off-kilter geometric compositions set her apart from painters working with more reductive shapes and forms. Sean Kelly Gallery (D2) has deep, chalky blue paintings by the London artist Idris Khan. The paintings look completely abstract but they are built up in places with layers of text. Across the aisle at Petzel Gallery (B1) Walead Beshty’s colorful photograms are reflected in mirrored panels on the floor, which will be sold after they are sufficiently cracked and weathered. The panels echo an earlier project by Mr. Beshty in which he “created” shattered sculptures by shipping glass rectangles in FedEx boxes. Deeper into the fair, Philadelphia’s Locks Gallery (A10) is spotlighting Edna Andrade (1917-2008), a painter who worked in the Op Art vein (although most painters eschewed that term). A few of her electric-hued, radiating compositions are mounted on wallpaper that she designed, alongside a ceramic chess set she made, showing her range beyond painting into craft and design.
Crafted Objects
The Art Show
Feb. 27 through March 1 at the Park Avenue Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, Manhattan; artdealers.org.
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