[ 夢土上 ]

Time goes quick, and I am going back to Taiwan soon. This is my last essay for ESL. If you have time, please check it out. I still have three more final exams and one more final presentation before 18th. All of them will be good!!

The Armory Shows
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It was a beautiful day in March, 2006.The temperature was warm. Breeze, sunshine, and the expectation of coming spring was appearing everywhere in Manhattan. My artist friends and I went to New York City to visit the Armory Show, which was a huge international gallery fair located on two piers on Hudson River, in upper west Manhattan. The show was amazing. Hundreds of galleries form all over the world gathering there to promote their artists and art. At that place, I could hear French, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and some other languages that I couldn't even recognize. That afternoon, we spent about 4 hours on these two piers but just skimmed over the artwork in a rush. Since I couldn't stop taking pictures and it was too difficult to pay attention for each work, after coming back and looking through all my pictures, I even couldn't remember that I had seen some of them in the show. However, the Armory Show was not something new. There was another Armory Show, which had the official name, "International Exhibition of Modern Art", opened in New York City in 1913, and “became a legendary watershed date in the history of American art” (“Armory Show”).
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The Armory Show in 1913 introduced Modern art into America and impacted people's aesthetic conceptions. It was the year right before World War I. America kept improving itself on many aspects such as laws, social systems and essential constructions. However, Europe was still the center of art at that time. While so many immigrants were continuously moving into America, many American artists wanted to move to Paris for the better art environment there (“An Outline” 3). The Amory Show was held by a little group of radical artists, an Association of American Painters and Sculptures, in New York City's 69th Regiment Armory, from February 17, 1913, to March 15(“Armory Show”). This show caused a huge effect on American art, even though it was taunted by the press as a circus (“New York” 1). Before the Armory Show, American people were used to only realistic art, which are usually beautiful landscapes, photographic still lives, or functional portraits. However, the Modernism artwork in the show, including Impressionism, Postimpressism, Fauvism, and Cubism paintings and sculptures, motivated American artists to become more independent and various (“Armory Show”). Following with the dominant development in economy, New York City eventually became the new center of art after the two destructive world wars.
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The Armory Show of 1913 exhibited about 1250 paintings, sculptures, and decorative work by over 300 European and American artists. The Armory located on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th streets, divided into 18 individual galleries as a frame of skeleton (“Welcome to” 1). Each gallery had a different focus on either European or American art. As the article “New York Armory Show of 1913” in the famous website “AskART ” mentions: “Exhibitors’ names read like a Who’s Who list of American art.” (3) Many of the most well-known American artists at that time were involved in the show, such as Edward Hopper, whose art usually expresses the solitude in contemporary American life, James Whistler, who is best known for his black-and-white portrait of his mother, and Mary Cassatt, a female artist whose paintings present a mother and child in intimate relationship or domestic scenes (Wikipedia.org). Regarding European art, the show also gathered plenty of fantastic work of great European artists such as Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh. Some of the European artists, like Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, and Marcel Duchamp, had their artwork displayed in America for the first time (“New York” 3). Moreover, it was also the first time that an official art institution, Metropolitan Museum of Art, purchased a modernism work, which is Cézanne's Hill of the Poor, signifying the changing of the art market in America (“Welcome to” 1).
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The “new ”Amory Show, which was located in piers 90 and 92 on the Hudson River, was another story. From March 10-13, 2006, these two piers became an international art bazaar that filled with brilliant art and excited people. What is “The Amory Show” nowadays? Maybe the article on The New York Times on the opening day can answer this question.
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The Armory Show, now one of the world's biggest contemporary art fairs, began in 1994 as an almost quaint exercise in art marketing at the Gramercy Park Hotel, where galleries showed work on twin beds and atop toilet tanks. It outgrew those quarters -- and ambitions -- and moved to the 69th Regiment Armory on 26th Street, where it acquired its name. Next it expanded into the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, and in 2001 it moved to the piers, where last year it generated sales of more than $40 million and drew 40,000 visitors, twice the capacity of Madison Square Garden. This year, with galleries coming in from 38 countries and lots of money still percolating in the market, it is likely to top those figures. (Randall Kennedy).
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It was definitely a commercial place. People wore classy clothing standing in front of pictures, sculptures, or something that no one really knew what they were, discussing gracefully about new artists, new art trends, and of course the unbelievablely expensive prices of new art works. Compare to the experimental art in Whitney Biennial at the other side of New York City, which I also visited on that day, the Armory Show exhibited excellent works which were generally in appropriate sizes, delightful topics, and artistic qualities. They looked really attractive. Anyone who had enough money could just pick one and ask the staff to pack it and send it home.
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“New York is home to more collectors, galleries, critics and artists than any other city in the world”(“About the” 3). In New York City, the crossroad of world and the center of art, we can always find hundreds of exhibitions and art events by skimming though Village Voice or Gallery Guide. On the inconspicuous streets in Chelsea, there are numinous galleries exhibiting either priceless or unknown art beside car wash shops and warehouses. Art is definitely a good business here. The Amery Show in 1913 opened the new page of American art history, introduced modern art from Europe, and set up the foundation of the energetic art market in New York City today. Next year (2007), the eighth annual Amory Show will still catch our eyes with vibrant new art coming out.





Reference
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“Armory Show.” Wikipedia.org. 17 Apr. 2006. 24 Apr. 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armory_Show
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“An Outline of American History: Chapter 7” Usinfo.org. 2005. 24 Apr. 2006. http://usinfo.org/chinese_cd/OutAmHis/BIG5/Chapter_07.htm
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“Welcome to the 1913 Armory Show.” Xroads.virginia.edu. 09.Jun. 2004. 24 Apr. 2006. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MUSEUM/Armory/entrance.html
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“New York Armory Show of 1913.” AskART.com. 2006. 24 Apr. 2006. http://www.askart.com/AskART/interest/new_york_armory_show_of_1913s_1.aspx?id=15
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“Edward Hopper.” Wikipedia.org. 26 Apr. 2006. 26 Apr. 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Hopper
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“Mary Cassatt.” Wikipedia.org. 25 Apr. 2006. 26 Apr. 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Cassatt
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Randall Kennedy. “Move That Ship. It’s Time for an Art Fair.” The New York Times. 10 Mar. 2006. Leisure Weekend Desk.
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“About the Show.” Thearmoryshow.com. 2006. 26 Apr. 2006. http://www.thearmoryshow.com/index2.php?mode=info