Art in New York! Come and Look!

Last week, on March 4 through March 7, Piers 92 and 94 on the Hudson River were dedicated to the Armory Art Show, the foremost contemporary art fair in America featuring leading international galleries representing new art by living artists. While much more new art works were visible at a number of galleries all over town, your guide, however, limited himself to Pier 94, thanks to an artist friend. We arrived at noon, when the gallery opened, and were able to see much of the exhibit - before throngs of people seemed to come out of the sky and arrive en masse!

But we did see some interesting work. At left is a branch with a crow, perched with his legs in pants, and going back and forth, as it squawks unintelligibly at us - a berating bird?!

Much of the art was perhaps easier to approach and appreciate, however; not all of it was so striking or unusual.

Yet, it was a massive exhibit, with thousands of works of art of many of the most prominent contemporary artists, both from the U.S. and abroad.

One mini-gallery was dedicated to a New York artist, however, whose work particularly struck me as compelling:
This is one of the works of James Nares, who has been working in New York for more than 35 years. My photograph doesn't do him justice, I'm afraid. (He is represented by the Paul Kasmin Gallery.) But it was quite striking.

The Armory Art Show is a very brief one, however, although it does get quite a crowd during those four days. And some of them are just beginning their appreciation of the finer things in the art world.

One of the greatest things about watching children is appreciating how immediate their connection to their reality can be. They probably don't approach a work of art wondering what it "means," or whether it's "worth" a lot of money. Or at least not at first.










But it is very possible that confronted with this work of art, entitled Quartet, a young art observer might have some questions!















All in all, it was a very wonderful exhibit, even when some exhibits seemed to have an almost ironic approach to their existence -
- but I wish I could catalogue them all.