A lot of things can be said about an art fair, and which booth was the best is by far the most boring. That’s why we decided to launch Hyperallergic’s Armory Show Booth Awards, to honor what really matters among the more than 235 gallery presentations currently on view at the Javits Center. With the Armory Show celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, it’s an especially festive moment to recognize the booths excelling in such laudable categories as “Shiniest,” “Most Duchampian,” “Most Likely to Get Raided by the Manhattan DA,” and many other admirable distinctions. Without further ado, we present you our 2024 winners. Please join us in congratulating them! —Valentina Di Liscia, News Editor
Best for Someone Who Has a Complicated Relationship With Their Family
Are the holidays approaching? You can gird yourself by staring at this work by Ry Rocklen at the booth of Wilding Cran Gallery and remember that the numbness you feel didn’t just happen. “Thanks, Mom and Dad. No, a second helping of stuffing to push down the feelings surfaced by my fourth gin and tonic doooes sound fun.” —Hrag Vartanian, Editor-in-Chief
Nerdiest Art History Reference
Snagging one of the most coveted honors in this year’s competition is New York’s own Duane Thomas Gallery, whose booth in the fair’s main section is dedicated to art critic and curator Lucy Lippard’s groundbreaking 1976 publication From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women’s Art. Works by Cynthia Carlson, Eunice Golden, Nancy Graves, Rita Myers, Shirley Pettibone, Adrian Piper, and Barbara Zucker are complemented by an extremely nerdy selection of Lippard’s texts, magazines, and archival materials that will have you screaming, “DEMATERIALIZATION!” —VD
Most Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made Of
Tschabalala Self’s exuberant installation Bodega Run, exhibited by Two Palms, is the fair’s most quintessential New York presentation, and it’s loaded with questions of race, migration, and the American Dream that the city’s iconic corner stores so perfectly embody. Got a loosie? —Hakim Bishara, Senior Editor
Most Recumbent
right: Works by Lydia Pettit at the booth of Dinner Gallery (photo Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)
The judges of this year’s awards found themselves scrambling to include an additional category at the last minute when it became evident that an unexpected theme had emerged: supine and prone figures. While Chiffon Thomas’s “Untitled (Dome, Figure 1)” (2023) took home the grand prize, works by Jeanne Silverthorne and Lydia Pettit earned special distinctions from our jury, who wants someone to explain what the hell is going on. —VD
Shiniest
This category was neck-and-neck this year, as more than a handful of galleries got their glitz on with their sparkliest and in some cases most migraine-inducing inventory. Despite the glittery competition, the winner was without a doubt the booth of the Shanghai gallery Bank, presenting several of Oliver Herring’s late 1990s–early 2000s knitted silver Mylar works. The immediate festive appearance of these pieces takes on a deeper significance when considering that they were conceived as a tribute to the drag artist Ethyl Eichelberger, who died by suicide two years after receiving an AIDS diagnosis. Like Eichelberger’s legacy, Herring’s sculptures shine on. —VD
Most Likely to Get Raided by the Manhattan DA
To create “Chariots of the Gods” (2009), Hew Locke visited the British Museum’s since-shuttered Museum of Mankind, where its non-Western “ethnographic” collections were once housed. The works by Locke in the Armory Show’s Platform section, including two sculptures from his Souvenirs series (2018–ongoing), reference everything from the Benin Bronzes to Inca mummified remains to jeweled statues of members of the British royal family, effectuating a clever critique of imperialism and empire. Today we recognize the artist’s attention to detail and thoughtful concept by noting that this installation would probably get at least an eyebrow raise from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has been busy hunting looted antiquities all over town. —VD
Most Suited for a Workaholic Rather Than Someone Who Takes Vacations
Why not indulge your workaholism and pretend you’re on vacation staring at these rather than actually taking some downtime? The brighter the paint the closer to the beach, amirite?! —HV
Most Likely to Resurface Your Worst The Last of Us Nightmares
Chris Soal’s sprawling sculptural works, presented by Whatiftheworld gallery in Cape Town and meticulously constructed out of quotidian objects such as toothpicks, evince a mastery of the craft and a level of inventiveness that is frankly rare at an art fair. They are also highly reminiscent of the mutant zombie fungus in the post-apocalyptic video game and hit TV series The Last of Us (2023). Still wouldn’t mind having one in my living room, just saying. —VD
Most Duchampian
Last night I was thinking of the 1913 original Armory Show, where 26-year-old Marcel Duchamp made a splash with his Cubist painting “Nude Descending a Staircase” (1912). Something about Rodrigo Valenzuela’s hand sculptures, his pale photos of skeletal forms, and the overall design of the black-tiled booth evoked Duchamp to me. And when I mentioned this to gallerist Asya Geisberg, who represents the artist, she said I wasn’t the first to make that comparison. —HB
Creepiest
Australian artist Patricia Piccinini is known for realistic sculptures made of silicone and real human hair, exploring themes like genetic engineering and biotechnology and … okay, I can’t look at this anymore. —VD
Special Mention: Most Exclusionary
Apropos Duchamp, art-world gatekeeping and elitism rear their heads at the Armory, even in the restrooms. —HB
