After long summer holidays spent on sandy beaches, sipping Aperol at midnight cafés of southern tourist towns, and enjoying relaxing mountain hikes, people are finally returning to the bustling and dusty life of the big city. The art world is also coming back from its extended summer break, with galleries reopening their doors to welcome city dwellers and visitors with grand openings, cultural events, and art fairs. New York is lively once again, with dozens of major fairs and shows to explore. Last week saw the opening of some of the city’s most significant art fairs, and we are excited to discuss them in this article.

Independent 20th Century art fair

This year marked the third edition of the Independent 20th Century art fair, held the first week of September in the historic 1908 Battery Maritime Building at South Ferry, on the southern tip of Manhattan. First held in 2022, the fair is dedicated to artists and international avant-garde movements from 1900 to 2000. The Independent 20th Century art fair is renowned for its carefully curated selection of contemporary artworks and its commitment to providing a platform for innovative and provocative presentations. It brings together internationally recognized and lesser-known artists, offering new perspectives on 20th-century art.

The Independent  20th Century Art Fair’s curatorial approach combined familiar names with unexpected discoveries. Led by founder Elizabeth Dee and a newly expanded curatorial team, the 2024 edition of the fair featured 32 exhibitors, nearly half of whom were making their debut at Independent 20th Century. Notable first-time participants included Alison Jacques from London, Gomide&Co from São Paulo, and Fair Warning from New York—a curated auction platform founded by Loïc Gouzer. The fair showcased works from American and international pop art, Italian avant-garde, self-taught artists, and African-American art communities.

In a statement, Elizabeth Dee, the fair’s founder, said, “Independent 20th Century is broadening our understanding of the canon, by showcasing key artists and movements currently undergoing reassessment in our cultural landscape. We present a platform for well-informed collectors and museums who are actively engaging with opportunities to thoughtfully explore new art historical conversations. Our mission as a fair is to link the past to the present moment in contemporary art.”

The Armory Show

Last weekend also marked the opening of The Armory Show, New York’s largest Modern and Contemporary art fair and one of the biggest in the world. Held at the Javits Center on 11th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen—just north of some of the city’s most prominent Chelsea galleries—this year’s fair featured over 235 galleries from 35 countries, including 55 first-time participants. Originally launched as the Gramercy International Art Fair in 1994, this year, The Armory Show celebrated its 30th anniversary.

For this milestone edition, in addition to the main Galleries section, several curated sections were showcased throughout the fair. These included Solo, featuring single-artist exhibitions ranging from emerging talents to 20th-century masters; Presents, spotlighting younger galleries that have been operating for 10 years or less; Platform, presenting large-scale installations throughout the fair; and Focus, highlighting cross-disciplinary projects that referenced the fair’s avant-garde origins.

Exhibition highlights included Kapp Kapp’s booth in the Focus section, featuring a solo exhibition of new works by Louis Osmosis, a rising artist making his fair debut. Also in the Focus section, OCHI Gallery presented a solo show of new paintings by Brooklyn-based artist b chehayeb. Sean Kelly Gallery showcased works by Shahzia Sikander, Awol Erizku, Sam Moyer, and Janaina Tschäpe, among others.

This year’s fair was planned in collaboration with Frieze. Curators for the 30th edition—and the first under newly appointed director Kyla McMillan—included independent curator Eugenie Tsai (Platform), The Kitchen’s senior curator Robyn Farrell (Focus), and Hessel Museum of Art’s chief curator Lauren Cornell, who chaired the seventh annual Curatorial Leadership Summit.

Jack Barrett Gallery  presents “Les Vagues”by Élise Lafontaine

From September 6 to October 19, the Jack Barrett Gallery in New York is hosting “Les Vagues,” a solo exhibition by Montreal-based artist Élise Lafontaine. This exhibition marks Lafontaine’s first solo show with the gallery and her New York City debut.

Élise Lafontaine is an abstract painter who distorts reality to create a new way of seeing the world. Her works are abstractions of everyday forms that resemble the human body and architecture with anthropomorphic qualities, creating an indeterminate yet elusive and difficult-to-define sense of familiarity. Lafontaine transforms her images through collage, making the original source material unrecognizable by physically cutting and stitching painted canvases into new compositions.

Lafontaine has staged immersive experiences in unique locations, including the prehistoric caves of the Aegean Pyrenees (France), prisons and psychiatric institutions (Switzerland), the Carmelite monastery in Montreal (Canada), and more recently, the Goetheanum, home to Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophical Society (Switzerland). She captures photographic documentation of these sites and then moves on to painting, with each series influenced by the specific qualities of the site—its light, volume, iconography, bodily sensations, and lived experiences.

The title of Lafontaine’s new exhibition, Les Vagues (translated from French as “The Waves”), refers to both the structural undulations of her volumetric canvases and the organic forms painted on them. The term can also suggest something elusive or difficult to grasp, like a vague thought just out of reach. Les Vagues explores the tension of existing in the space before meaning fully emerges. We highly recommend visiting this exhibition when in New York.

Stephen Friedman Gallery presents The Letters in this Alphabet Were Trees by Sky Glabush

Another Canadian artist is making his New York debut this autumn; Sky Glabush’s first-ever solo exhibition in New York City is on view at the Stephen Friedman Gallery until October 17. Based in the countryside near London, Ontario, Sky Glabush is celebrated for his brilliantly colored landscapes that depict forests, fields, flowers, the sea, and the sky. Over the last decade, Glabush has developed physically demanding and experimental techniques to push the boundaries of painting. His innovative process of mixing sand and oil paint enhances the interplay of light and texture in his work, transforming two-dimensional paintings into relief sculptures that pay homage to modernist strategies, craftsmanship, and experimentation. For Glabush, expanding the boundaries of contemporary painting involves exploring the transition between painting and sculpture.

In Early Light at Roblin Lake (2024), Glabush’s largest painting to date, the artist fills the monumental composition with red and ochre trees that simultaneously obscure and reveal an expansive seascape illuminated by radiant beams of sunlight. Throughout the exhibition, Glabush uses landscapes to explore the expressive possibilities of familiar forms made unfamiliar. Some works in the exhibition evoke Monet’s late water lilies and Van Gogh’s swirling, ecstatic depictions of sunflowers and night skies. As Glabush noted in a recent interview, “I live and breathe modernist history, especially that moment leading up to abstraction, when the image was being destroyed, distilled, invented, and transformed, but still remained an image.”

The exhibition’s title is borrowed from Seamus Heaney’s poem “Alphabets,” in which a young child leaves the classroom and discovers that tree branches form words and phrases. Much like Heaney’s vision of “each strange letter” shaping one’s perception of the world, Glabush’s images act as forms and motifs rather than literal representations. They carry historical and emotional content that taps into our collective consciousness, provoking new interpretations and responses. Throughout the exhibition, Glabush continues to use the landscape as a space to explore the expressive possibilities of familiar forms made unfamiliar.

“Future Fossils” by Selva Huygens at 8 Marvila

One more exciting exhibition and must-see for art enthusiasts is taking place not in New York but in Lisbon—the hometown of Haize. On September 19th, 2024, we proudly present our first-ever hybrid art and fashion exhibition, Future Fossils by SELVA HUYGENS. The brand’s show will premiere worldwide at Haize’s new space at 8 Marvila in Lisbon, in collaboration with Lara Dâmaso for the sound installation and a unique performance.

Selva Huygens is a Berlin-based sustainable fashion brand that transforms discarded car parts, metal hardware, and industrial waste into functional, wearable pieces. Founded by Argentinian-born interdisciplinary artist Cristian Huygens, the brand features armors, wings, and shields made from upcycled metal and car parts painted in immaculate white. Selva Huygens reveals a dystopian vision of the creative industries he enters. As our society spirals into overproduction and overconsumption, the designer boldly combines crafts to convey his aesthetics and values. While many focus on new technologies and shaping the digital era, the artist questions our relationship with machines and the material world.

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