12.11.23 — Forget March Madness
What drew me back yet again to the art fairs? What draws anyone back? As the fall winds down in galleries, allow me this week to look back to those mad September new beginnings.
The fall New York art fairs seem more the new normal than ever, most on that first week after Labor Day, when summer for the likes of us has ended, and people are back in town. Galleries have their one week of concerted openings. (They can almost make up for empty office space, give or take reality.) So what more can collectors ask? How about two more trips to the Manhattan waterfront, for the Independent at the southern tip of the city and Art on Paper off the Lower East Side? How about two fairs in the Javits center alone—the Armory Show and a newcomer, Photofairs?
How about the buzz creeping into midtown for Spring Break (like the rest, formerly in March)—or alternative fairs in Chelsea itself? I swore this year that I could give them all up, but I could not let go of a favorite or two, and then the lures of photography and authority took me in. If I cannot do justice to any of them, you will understand. If I am frantic to catch up with the galleries and museums as well, you will again. Surely someone or something will not go along with this. It just will not be the business of art, and I make it my subject all this week, with an extra post for tomorrow.
Read more, now in a feature-length article on this site.