The Armory Show announced yesterday that Kyla McMillan will succeed Nicole Berry, who left the art fair in March to become senior director of donor engagement at L.A.’s Hammer Museum. McMillan has held several high-profile roles in the art industry, including directorships at David Zwirner and Gavin Brown Enterprise. Most recently, she founded an itinerant gallery and curation, advisory and consultancy company, Saint George Projects, which produced exhibitions with artists like Alvaro Barrington and Henri Paul Broyard in New York and Los Angeles.
“I am honored to join The Armory Show at this fairest moment in the fair’s history,” McMillan said in a statement. “My goal is to empower collectors and emphasize the fair’s role as a platform for artists, galleries and art enthusiasts. The Armory Show has long been celebrated as a foundational fair for New York and the U.S. art market. I look forward to building on the Armory Show’s achievements while also championing new voices and creating opportunities for diverse perspectives in contemporary art.”
She’ll step into her new position next week, just a few months before the 2024 edition of the New York art fair, which is scheduled for September 6-8 with a VIP preview on September 5. This year marks the Armory Show’s 30th anniversary and its first year under the Frieze banner. Indeed, Frieze’s director of fairs, Kristell Chadé, and its Americas director, Christine Messineo, were at the helm when the fair announced its exhibitors earlier last month.
More than 145 exhibitors from the previous edition are returning to the Armory Show, including significant galleries like 303 Gallery (New York), Dastan Gallery (Tehran), Kasmin (New York), Sean Kelly (New York, Los Angeles), Victoria Mirò (London, Venice), Almine Rech (New York, Paris, Brussels, London, Shanghai), Silverlens (Makati City, New York), Jessica Silverman (San Francisco) and Vielmetter Los Angeles (Los Angeles). Newcomers this year include Corbett vs. Dempsey (Chicago), Commonwealth and Council (Los Angeles, Mexico City), GALLERY BATON (Seoul), LABOR (Mexico City), Mingoni (New York), Hannah Traore Gallery (New York), Experimenter (Kolkata, Mumbai) and Wilding Cran (Los Angeles).
In particular, it will be interesting to explore the Focus section, which will emphasize the experimental nature of the Armory with single or duo-artist presentations that engage with the original booths from the first edition in 1994 at the Gramercy Hotel. Fair-goers will be treated to a walk-through of avant-garde history with works curated by Robyn Farrell, a senior curator at nonprofit art space The Kitchen.
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The Platform section, this year curated by Eugenie Tsai, will present more ambitious large-scale works brought by galleries including Baró Galeria (Palma Marianne), Boesky Gallery (New York, Aspen), Peter Blum Gallery (New York), Bockley Gallery (Minneapolis), Jeffrey Deitch (New York, Los Angeles) and Lehmann Maupin (New York, Seoul, London, Hong Kong), among others.
The fair will also have a special section, Not-For-Profit, dedicated to nonprofit art spaces this year, with exhibitors including Aperture Foundation (New York) Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (New York), CalArts (Valencia), Fine Art Work Center (Provincetown), Lower East Side Printshop (New York), New York Academy of Art (New York), Tamarind Institute (Albuquerque), Tate London (Liverpool, St Ives ) and Tierra Del Sol (Los Angeles).
Creative Year, a renowned institution for ambitious public art projects around New York City, the United States and the world, was awarded this year’s Armory Spotlight.
