Commentary
This month’s issue takes a takes a different approach
to reporting on the explosion of art fair activity that takes
place across New York during what we call now “Armory
Week”. The truth is, the production values for even
the relatively new (or young) art fairs, such as Helen Allen’s
Pulse or Alexis Hubsman’s Scope have
risen so quickly that in terms of the art work and the dealers,
there is really not much difference from what these fairs
offer and what The Armory Show and Art Basel
Miami Beach offer. As the communications director for
Art Basel, Peter Vetsch, observed, when disappointed
dealers lamented that they were not accepted back into Art
Basel one year; the thing to do is just apply to more
fairs. The event is bigger than any one art fair now, and
collectors have figured out that many of the same dealers
who at one time or another had a booth in Art Basel
(for example) may very well be found in Scope or
Pulse or even Art Miami — which effectively
reinvented itself last year.
So in considering how to cover Armory Week, I decided that
it would be more useful to the reader to focus in-depth on
just one art fair — one that could serve as a case study
for understanding the processs that all of these fairs work
through anyway. With that in mind, we have the interview with
Michael Workman who whose Bridge Art Fair joined
the roster of quality fairs in New York with its debut here
last month.
In the same vein of thought, next month’s M
features a discussion with Jack Tilton, who is characteristically
ahead of the curve on the trend towards all things Asia. Now
if we can just get Jack to smile more often, he’d look
great on the cover of M. What
do you think?
M. Brendon MacInnis
Publisher
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