4 Rising Artists at NYC’s Armory Fair to Know Now

In past years, the Armory has come and gone without much fanfare. This year, there is much to talk about. After a slow art market summer in the city and some pessimism-sharing in the Hamptons, the Armory Show will be the first vibe test of the season. Its sales will set the tone for September, as well as how galleries will mentally prepare for the upcoming fairs in Europe (Paris Plus and Frieze London). The new owners of the New York fair will undoubtedly be curious to see how things unfold at the Javitts center—they acquired Armory last summer and have since (ingeniously) appointed the beloved curator and advisor Kyla McMillan to its helm. In preparation for the festivities, we scouted the offerings and picked four artists that are on the rise—even in this skittish economy.

Paige K. Bradley at Blade Study

Paige K. Bradley’s incisive writing has always been a welcome anomaly in art criticism. Her studio practice, which combines painting and sculpture, makes the same deep, surgical cuts into the tender bonds between visual arts and the discourse that engulfs it. Top of her class as per usual, Bradley’s first solo booth with Blade Study titled “What is a meme” is the winner of this year’s Gramercy Prize, (an award given to the presentation that most embodies the rebellious and pioneering spirit of the fair’s founders: Colin de Land, Pat Hearn, Matthew Marks, and Paul Morris).

Without this tagging however, one would still be able to see something special was going on. Bradley has opted to hang her whole booth of paintings and sculptures at “dog-eye” level, half that of the usual gallery hang. At this height, they require a different kind of engagement—a stooping down to see closely all the handwrought details, inside jokes, and easter eggs with which Bradley bejewels her work. Our favorite piece might be Responsible Dog Owner, a readymade sculpture composed of a silk bag filled with cherry blossoms the artist scavenges on the streets of New York, or her last business card from Artforum where her own name has been swapped for Paris Hilton’s. The more you pull on Bradley’s threads the more rewards fall out.

Louis Osmosis at Kapp Kapp

Artist Louis Osmosis and his dealers at Kapp Kapp had a long running joke that if the sculptor ever landed a solo booth at an art fair that he would rise to the commercialism of the occasion and execute a suite of paintings that could cover the cost of playing the game. At the Armory, Osmosis delivers on this promise with a series of works he calls his deCan’t paintings. The deCan’t paintings are as self-aware of the lore and rules of the contemporary art world as their maker is. They toy with its clichés until they break. Take for instance, their material. Rendered on slabs of drywall, Osmosis paintings draw attention to the reality of their context: a gauntlet of temporary, overnight architecture. Osmosis underlines his drywall joke by punching peepholes through the actual booth walls, exposing its hollow guts.

As for the compositions, each painting operates like a one-cell cartoon featuring houseflies discussing putrefaction with one another. These are the flies on the wall—Osmosis undoubtedly identifies with them as he stares down the canon of art history. All jokes aside, these paintings are less about making fun of art as they are imagining new ways to make art fun. Like Richard Prince, Osmosis seems to have found in humor the ability to cannibalize and critique without destroying the foundation.

Camila Falquez at Hannah Traore

Dealer Hannah Traore’s solo presentation of photographer Camila Falquez operates like a mini-survey with strong, illustrative pieces drawn from separate bodies of work. In this arrangement, the questions that run through the Colombian photographer’s work—consent, intimacy, representation, color—bubble to the surface, connecting her to canonical lineages and documentary artists like Reynaldo Rivera and Sharon Lockhart.

Those who haven’t caught the photographer’s images at Hannah Traore (they’ve been working together for two years) will undoubtedly be impressed by the New York-based artist’s intuitive use of color that comes roaring through in her idiosyncratic matte and framing method, which relies on pairing portraits with found silks. The fabric enables the artist to transform what could be editionable prints into one-of-a-kind sculptures. This material resistance to photography’s tendency towards mass distribution underscores the way the artist looks at her sitters. Everyone is unique in Falquez’s camera.

Jordan Ann Craig at Hales

If Jordan Ann Craig’s work reminds you of the lined pages you used to write on in school, then follow that inkling a little further and you might fall into the artist’s logic, which turns personal and communal narratives into pulsating abstractions. The lines, dots, and shapes that the artist employs might not represent anything to the casual observer but for Craig these are the letters that help form the phrases of the larger stories she seeks to put on canvas. Some of the patterns and rhythms Craig uses derive from her research into her Northern Cheyenne heritage and Cheyenne material culture. Reinterpreting traditional patterns for her own usage, these passages and idioms become tools to create new kinds of compositions that are able to envelope Craig’s experience and the past at once. Bursting with emotion even in their quietude, Craig’s works bring to mind the canvases of another New Mexico-based painter Agnes Martin. Like Martin, Craigs work encourages us to read not only between the lines but beyond them.