APAA’s Top Picks from The Armory Show 2024
Image courtesy of The Armory Show.
The Armory Show 2024 has arrived, and seven APAA advisors have highlighted their must-see works on display. The event opens with an exclusive VIP preview on September 5th, followed by public viewing from September 6th to 8th. For more information, visit The Armory Show’s website.
Manuel López, Parking Lot View (South Central LA Sunday 5:55pm), 2024.
“For this year’s edition of The Armory Show, LA-based gallery Charlie James is presenting a solo booth of Manuel López’s paintings that take the same city as their subject. Parking Lot View (South Central LA Sunday 5:55pm) depicts the view of typical Southern Californian apartment buildings seen from behind, with their ad hoc additions and rickety staircases. The homes are separated from the viewer by a cinderblock wall and a newly paved asphalt parking lot, freshly poured and painted with bright yellow stripes. Static under an uncanny yellow sky, you can feel the dryness in the air, a whole city baking under a golden sun.
This is the landscape known to all ordinary Angelenos, not the one glamorized by Architectural Digest. It depicts the same steep and unstable staircase that my immigrant grandparents had at the back of their apartment that overlooked the lots at Paramount Pictures. López’s painting is honest but also empathetic, sandwiching the chaos of the private structures between the orderly bands of spindly palm trees above and the soulless parking lot below. The result is an elegiac form of expression created not by an observer passing through town but by someone who knows those staircases, too.
It’s not only this artist that’s worth checking out but also his gallery, Charlie James. The team at the gallery has a palpable passion for and commitment to its artists who actively engage the Now in their own individual ways. The Armory Show gives those of us who are normally not installed in Southern California a wonderful opportunity to get to know them.”
Acrylic on canvas
24 x 18 inches
Presented by Charlie James
Diana Al-Hadid, In a Twist, 2024.
“Kasmin Gallery has a great roster of artists for a small independent gallery. And despite the death of its founder, Paul Kasmin, the gallery continues its active program of shows, and representing artists. Their Armory Show advance PDF has works at all price points. One of their newest artists, Diana Al-Hadid, left Marianne Boesky gallery, and Kasmin is offering one multi-media panel(these works are her most widely known) and two works on paper. These panels are very often figurative, and contain art historical references and source material, but this newest one depicts figures rather prominently, in a new development for this wonderful young artist.”
Polymer gypsum, fiberglass, steel, plaster, metal leaf and pigment
61 1/2 x 48 x 5 1/2 inches
156.2 x 121.9 x 14 cm
(PK 30974)
Presented by Kasmin Gallery
Nicholas Galanin, Architecture of return, escape (CRC Smithsonian), 2024.
“In a sea of art, Nicholas Galanin's work ALWAYS resonates and continues to amaze - in its physical beauty, materiality, and the ways the artist challenges viewers to confront art history. This latest exploration is a powerful and compelling visual narrative.”
As Galanin describes:
“The ‘Architecture of return’ hide painting series uses museum blueprints to map escape routes for Indigenous remains and cultural objects held in institutional collections to return home. Each of these works is a wayfinder for decolonization, beginning with return. ‘Architecture of return, escape (Smithsonian CRC)’ is a mapped escape plan for remains and objects held in Smithsonian storage. The Smithsonian holds numerous human remains and ceremonial objects not intended for public view within museum archives. The cost and processes required to travel and visit these archives limits access to cultural knowledge and inheritance for Indigenous communities.”
Pigment and acrylic on deer hide
52 x 59 inches
Presented by Peter Blum Gallery
Claire Oswalt, The Names I Didn’t Name My Children, 2024.
“I was first introduced to Claire’s work at NADA NY last year. I was immediately drawn to the beautiful, seemingly abstract images on sewn-canvas. I later found out that her large scale works started from a small study using cut-paper and watercolor. This past month I came across her work again at Broadway Gallery’s East Hampton Summer space. I was captivated by the elegant washes of paint, again on sewn canvas, and moved by the haunting backstory of the blurry images of clocks throughout the series of paintings.”
Acrylic on sewn canvas
82 x 82 inches
Presented by Broadway Gallery
Adrian Berg, Regent’s Park, Gloucester Gate, May, 1983.
“Although largely unknown outside the UK, Adrian Berg’s Regent’s Park, Gloucester Gate, May, is a fantastic example of why his work has been gaining recognition and praise and why it is my pick for this year’s Armory Show. Berg was steadfast in his passion for landscape painting at a time rife with Abstract Expressionism, minimalism, and Pop Art. Often compared to Monet in the serial nature of his paintings, the artist obsessively painted his window view of Regent’s Park for 24 years, before later extending his subject matter to other notable gardens in the UK. Berg’s focus on a single subject allowed him to explore the formal and cerebral qualities of painting. In contrast with the typically gray and muted British disposition, Berg’s painting is in dramatic contrast. This work is vibrant and luminous, aligning with the celebration of color and fascination with composition and pattern-forming that is found throughout his oeuvre. Berg’s views of Regent’s Park are personal, emotional responses to his surroundings, still highly representational, but not directly correlated to the environment. Berg’s depiction of the landscape, with its intriguing reflection and intricate greenery, is wonderfully absorbing and mesmerizing.”
Oil on canvas
59 1/2 x 59 1/2 inches
Presented by Frestonian
Anoushka Mirchandani, (Not Yet Titled), 2024.
“This captivating painting's rich palette and dynamic composition draw the eye. The floral corner, burlap-like line, and intriguing scribbles create a sense of mystery. A hidden narrative emerges, hinting at a larger story and the presence of another unseen figure.”
Oil and oil pastel on canvas
48 x 36 inches
Presented by Yossi Milo Gallery
Eldzier Cortor, Southern Theme (The Room) No lll, 1947.
“My pick for The Armory Show is Eldzier Cortor’s mid-career Southern Theme (The Room) No lll, painted in 1947. This post-war painting creates a haunting yet evocative atmosphere with its fragmented composition framed by various elements and circles of smoke drifting across the canvas. Southern born but raised in Chicago, Cortor’s work of the late 1940s was deeply influenced by the distinctive culture of the Gullah community in Georgia and South Carolina. In this surreal composition, Cortor masterfully combines superior draftsmanship with elongated human forms in a crowded, dilapidated, enigmatic interior utilizing various patterns and textures to underscore the depth and complexity of the scene”
Oil and gesso on panel
15 x 28 in.
Presented by Michael Rosenfeld Gallery
Woody De Othello, Autumnal Skies, 2024.
“This work beautifully complements the artist’s sculptural work. The rich, vibrant palette is incredibly appealing, and the landscape offers a stunning backdrop. The connection between these two mediums is evident in the way the painting feels both grounded and expansive.”
Oil on canvas
25-1/4 x 19-1/4 x 2-1/4 inches
Presented by Jessica Silverman Gallery