Armory Show reduces galleries to improve quality

People visit the 2014 Armory Show in New York, the United States, March 5, 2014. The 2014 Armory Show, one of the world's top art events featuring the most influential artworks of the 20th and 21st centuries, kicked off on Wednesday. [Photo/Xinhua]

When Noah Horowitz took the job of directing the Armory Show in New York in 2011, the fair had confronted criticism for being overcrowded with dealers and galleries with uneven quality and not having a clear direction. Following the launch of the NADA fair and New York's version of the Frieze Art Fair in 2012, the city has seen an increasingly competitive art scene — and people have more choices for their time than lingering at Piers 92 and 94.

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"There are too many fairs and galleries inevitably become more and more selective of which they will attend," Horowitz says.

"Fairs must have a very clear business proposition to win galleries' continuing support in the long term. Every year you have to reinvent yourself."

The core proposition that Armory offers to galleries and the public, Horowitz says, is the access to the powerful and compelling New York art market.

"Much of the market has been globalized, but New York for sure is still the center of international art trade."

There were almost 280 galleries represented before Horowitz took over Armory. He reduced that number to 230 in his first year at the fair, in 2013. This year, there were just over 200.

"For the past two and a half years we have been rebuilding our relationships with the galleries. We have better galleries showing more ambitious programs of the artists being represented. The quality of the fair has been vigorously enhanced."